Understanding Novelty in Organizations

Providing a first tentative understanding of novelty and a set of implications for organizations to manage it, this book focuses on the potential offered by emergent novelty, namely novelty which is neither designed nor pursued. The author asks how organizations might increase their abilities and strategies to benefit from its early recognition. Such potential is broken down into positive terms and demonstrates how early recognition is beneficial both to organizations which aim to seize emergent innovations as well as those which aim to avoid emergent disasters. Understanding Novelty in Organizations aims to rethink the structure and strategies of organizations to gain a new balance between design and randomness in the generation of novelty. The varied perspectives presented in this work will engage scholars interested in novelty, innovation and creativity, and emergency management.

“Novelty constitutes and creates opportunities and challenges for individuals and organizations. Frigotto’s book provides a fresh and original perspective on framing novelty: it offers an excellent synthesis of current research on novelty spanning economics, strategy and learning, and provides invaluable insights to categorize black vis-à-vis white novelties. Understanding Novelty in Organizations is an outstanding book, a must-read for researchers studying organizations and practitioners managing them.” (Andrea Prencipe, Professor of Organization and Innovation, LUISS University, Rome)

“Organizations often face harmful, unexpected events that can jeopardize their existence. In other cases they are confronted with fortuitous chances, which have to be quickly recognized and seized. In her brilliant book, Maria Laura Frigotto combines wisdom and rigor to drive the reader in an exciting journey. The many facets of good (white) and bad (black) novelties spout from her pages portraying the many opportunities of novelty management.” (Enrico Zaninotto, Professor of Economics and Business Management, University of Trento)

“This book by Laura Frigotto is a welcome broad-sweeping tour of the multiple literatures on understanding the production of novelty in organizations. Adopting the Carnegie-school tradition of defining “novelty” as new knowledge, Frigotto innovatively compares the literature on organizational and natural disasters to the usual emphasis on positive technological innovations, in order to show how re-dimensionality is at the heart of revolutionary re-interpretations in both spheres. I recommend this usual cognitive map both to students learning a new field and to researchers trying to extend their existing knowledge to adjacent domains.” (John Padgett, Professor of Political Science (and of Sociology andHistory), University of Chicago)

“A rich traversal of novelty with its countless dimensions, this book is a comprehensive guide to understanding how social organizations face the thorny problem of novelty, both when they search for innovations and when they are surprised by disasters. Essential reading for managers in business and scholars of management.” (Thorbjørn Knudsen, Professor of Organization Design, University of Southern Denmark)

“This book brings the idea of novelty to the stage in a systematic way. Novelty liberates all of us from the actor-vs-system-vs-chance trilemma. The author’s balanced approach connects both rigor and relevance and provides fertile ground for radically rethinking organizations and their relationship to time.” (Luca Solari, Professor of Organization Theory and Human ResourceManagement, University of Milan)

Maria Laura Frigotto is Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Management at the University of Trento, Italy. She has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University (SCANCOR) and at the University of Alberta, and has published widely in international academic journals. Maria Laura has written entries on ‘Organization Theory’ and ‘Novelty in Adaptation’ in the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management.