Most innovations emerge from parallel developments and collective histories

Evidence

Scholarship on innovation backs up this perspective. It turns out that the entrepreneur as a “great man” falls into the myth of technical innovation in which individuals are responsible for progressive leaps in technology. Rather than a “great man” with a eureka moment who single-handedly invents something game-changing, most innovations involve parallel developments, uncredited contributors, failures and starts, and lengthy social histories, all of which make for a far less exciting narrative. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 681

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the ‘great man’ critique in organizational theory and STS (e.g., Wiebe Bijker’s social construction of technology, and Kuhn’s point about simultaneous discovery). — connects to: Theory can emerge inductively from long collective research rather than precede it; Cultural innovation is collective and originates on the margins, not from isolated genius — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York…, 10; Individual intellectual achievements are culminations of collective momentum (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Cultural innovation is collective and originates on the margins, not from isolated genius #corroborates (0.98) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 10
• Individual intellectual achievements are culminations of collective momentum #expands (0.90)
• Science advances through collaborative effort, not isolated geniuses #exemplifies (0.88) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 747
• Theory can emerge inductively from long collective research rather than precede it #expands (0.85)