Abstract
Innovators’ struggle to rally key audiences’ support around their novel ideas, products, or projects is a central theme in the innovation and entrepreneurship literature. This struggle is intrinsic to the paradoxical nature of novelty. On the one hand, creating something genuinely new requires breaking out of existing categories, often by recombining them in atypical ways. But the outcomes of atypical recombination are less likely to be meaningfully and positively recognized by relevant audiences. Many studies demonstrate that such novel combinations hold the potential for great impact, yet they also consistently find that categorical mixing commonly receives reproach rather than support. Indeed, “most of the time” novel ideas are discarded “even under the most favorable circumstances” (Augier et al., 2015, p.1141). The challenge faced by innovators seeking to rally support for their ideas is especially acute in those situations where evaluative responses occur in the absence of any tangible product and/or before reputational information becomes available to relevant audiences. In fact, it is important to remember that the diffusion of any innovation is a social effort and eminently an outcome of communicative acts -oral or written. One example is given by “small narratives” that innovators may share in their conversations with clients, funders, patrons, or employers. The oral mode also includes the proverbial pitch to such audiences as media representatives, bankers, business angels, or venture capitalists. Examples of the written mode include executive summaries, storylines, or narratives that appear in product packages, pitch decks, crowdfunding campaigns, as well as longer narratives like story plots that may be submitted to key audiences for evaluation. Despite the frequency with which audiences across innovation domains are expected to evaluate novel offers couched into carefully crafted communication efforts, little research exists that attends to the structural properties of such messages and their effect on the recipients’ evaluative responses. Addressing this shortcoming implies drawing on advances in linguistics to zoom in on the language that innovators use and the effect this has on their endeavours to marshal symbolic as well as material resources. To this end we will focus on three distinct but related empirical settings where language is a crucial cultural resource mobilized by innovators as they interact with relevant audiences: pitch competitions, online crafting, Ted talks. These settings have unique features that make them particularly suitable for analytically unpacking the themes presented above. The project is grounded in ideas, theories, and methods that the PI and his colleagues have been developing over the past 15 years resulting in publications in top-tier academic journals and presentations at international conferences and leading academic institutions. We, therefore, feel optimistic about its successful completion.
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Simone Ferriani
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento di Scienze Aziendali
Coordinator:
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - Università di Bologna(Italy)
Total Eu Contribution: Euro (EUR) 204.108,00
Total Unibo Contribution: Euro (EUR) 169.000,00
Project Duration in months: 24
Start Date:
28/09/2023
End Date:
27/02/2026
