Co-Evolving Relationships and Innovation Dynamics

This chapter takes a critical look at the interplay of three key engagement elements: transactions, conversations, and relationships as they relate to innovation dynamics. It further pinpoints the importance of tracking four key factors—self-organization, tacit knowledge, social capital, and human nature—for the development of innovation rich social relationships. Most significantly, the author identifies a new dynamic organizational component: the shared-access domain or organizational sweet spot, and its significance to the innovative capacity of an enterprise. Research from such diverse fields as anthropology, evolutionary psychology, social neuroscience, and complex adoptive systems are used in an attempt to show commonalities in these disciplines in determining the effects of various organizational contexts/ecologies on the expansion or contraction of the shared-access domain. In essence, the chapter identifies methodologies and interrelated multidisciplinary factors for managing, or rather “unmanaging,” knowledge professionals.