Social innovations and the advancement of the general concept of innovation

Any innovation, whether ‘technical’, ‘social’ or apostrophized in a different way, is socially relevant and begins with the perception of a problem and an idea of how to solve it. The observation and investigation of energetically inefficient steam engines led to the development of improved technologies (condensers, Watt’s parallelogram, etc.) to economically relevant increases in performance and subsequently to fundamental changes in industry and society. Thus, after 12 years of inventiveness, James Watt realized a so-called basic innovation ¹ in 1776. A cluster of ideas, new insights and entrepreneurial decisions smoothed the way to this and other innovations that not only initiated a structural change in the British economy, but also intensified social upheavals to such an extent that the period marked the transition to the Industrial Age. These innovations were at the beginning of ‘long waves’ of economic development that were only statistically recorded and scientifically analysed in the twentieth century (Kondratieff 1926; Nefiodow 2001; Schumpeter 2008 [original: 1939]).