Page - (000038) - in Knowledge and Networks

28 A Critical Juncture in the Global Economy: Open Innovation and Networks The impetus for a normative agenda is recognition of a critical juncture in the global economy in which an emergent mode of production associated with new network- ing strategies reaps considerable rewards for fi rms and shareholders, but exacer- bates already precarious ways of earning a living and, more generally, inequality in the context of deepening socioeconomic polarization worldwide (Beck, 1999/ 2000 ; Standing, 2011 ). The aim is not to dismantle existing corporate strategies, an unfea- sible strategy, but rather to conceptualize ways to make use of them by reconfi gur- ing goals to privilege the sociopolitical without jettisoning the economic—admittedly diffi cult, but plausible. The emergent system of production is characterized overall by openness (Ettlinger, 2014 ) regarding two overlapping systems: innovation, and networks to access labor. Networks connect with innovation as a means by which fi rms access expertise and intellectual property. However, networks also enable fi rms to access labor for non-innovative yet menial activity, and the processes for connecting with this labor market differ. 4 In keeping with the theme of this volume, my focus in this chapter is on networks in relation to innovative activity, specifi cally knowledge networks. Novel forms of knowledge networks have evolved in the context of what has been termed open innovation in the business literature. The term was coined in 2003 by former corporate manager and Berkeley scholar Henry Chesbrough (Chesbrough, 2006a , 2006b ; Chesbrough , Vanhaverbeke, & West, 2006 ). The fi rst survey of open innovation was conducted in 2013, encompassing large fi rms in the United States and Europe with sales of more than 250 million dollars; results showed that over three quarters of the fi rms actively pursued open innovation strategies and, more- over, support for open innovation among top managers is increasing (Chesbrough & Brunswicker, 2013 ). Open Innovation and Networks Open innovation refers to the eclipsing of a longstanding tradition of in-house inno- vation by new practices whereby fi rms develop innovations on the terrain of interor- ganizational relations. Although fi rms externalized production under the regime of fl exible accumulation beginning around 1980 in the United States and Britain and 4 Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk subsidiary (Mechanicalturk.com) exemplifi es non-routine but menial work. Skilled labor is required, but for relatively low-skilled tasks that nonetheless are non- routine and therefore unamenable to operation by artifi cial intelligence. Amazon.com lists jobs or human intelligence tasks (HITs) for other companies that pay Amazon.com 10 % of the fee for completed tasks. People are paid extremely low wages by the task, not the unit of time—a situation that has been likened to “piece work” in a digital sweatshop. N. Ettlinger