Seminar: Michael Barrett, University of Cambridge

Unexpected Trajectories in Global Collaborative Innovation: Developing Mobile Services in Sub-Saharan Africa

Michael Barrett
University of Cambridge

Date: March 21, 2014
Time: 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Location: Room 423

Abstract: 

There has been a growing interest in collaborative innovation that emerges across multiple countries. Recent work has provided insight on innovation phases and how human actions influence innovation trajectories. Yet we know little about how the innovation trajectory is enacted as it interacts with other local and global trajectories. Given both the spatial nature of trajectories and the increasing importance of the global landscape of innovation, we contribute a spatial and relational understanding of innovation trajectories. We conducted an in-depth longitudinal study of the development, pilot, launch, and deployment of an innovative mobile payment system within Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from human geography studies, we develop an understanding of innovation trajectories as performed through relational and material practices that can account for heterogeneity, multiple geographies and uncertainty. Our study reveals the difficulties of traditional innovation approaches that focus on the process of developing, piloting, scaling and rolling out an innovation in understanding the trajectory of global collaborative innovation. We show how the focal innovation trajectory intersects with multiple other trajectories and becomes reshaped in unexpected ways.

For more information, please contact Rola Zoayter at: rola.zoayter [at] mcgill.ca.