ABSTRACT
In this chapter, it is suggested that innovative ideas emerge and transform because of conversational activity involving a large number of people. The focus is on important ideas and insights of the particular perspective of complex responsive processes (Stacey, 2001), and on how this perspective can inform and expand the concepts of entrepreneurial discovery, and knowledge conversion. Approaching the two concepts as emerging patterns of action, consciously and unconsciously influenced by many people through their ongoing participation in work-related social interaction, implies the acknowledgement of such processes as potentially leading to outcomes that were neither planned nor wanted. Furthermore, the perceived difference between ‘the new’ and ‘the existing’ should also be attributed importance as an aspect generating a spectrum of responses, including resistance and recognition. Such responses reflect temporary individual–collective perceptions of meaning, knowledge, identity, and the power relations in which the responding persons are part and may substantially influence the course of the ongoing innovation initiatives.
