Scandinavian Journal of Management · 2024
How do innovation teams move forward when situations are ambigous?
Mahringer, C. A. (2024). Innovating as chains of interrelated situations. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 40, 101314. 10.1016/j.scaman.2023.101314
Innovation is inherently ambiguous. Teams develop products and services whose final form is not yet known, interpret incomplete or unexpected results, and combine ideas, goals, technologies, materials, and expertise that may initially point in different directions. This ambiguity is especially pronounced in cross-functional product development and open innovation, where people with different professional backgrounds need to create a shared understanding of what is happening and what to do next.
The paper argues that ambiguity is best understood at the level of concrete situations rather than as a general property of an innovation practice or project. It therefore conceptualizes innovating as a chain of interrelated situations. Each situation is partially ambiguous because the elements present in it do not yet form a coherent whole. Actors have to define the situation sufficiently to make their actions mutually intelligible and continue the innovation process.
The paper asks: How do actors experience and deal with ambiguity as they innovate, and how do they define ambiguous situations so that collective action can continue?
This is a conceptual paper grounded in Lucy Suchman’s theory of situated action and illustrated through a wide range of empirical innovation studies. It connects examples from scientific research, product development, cross-functional collaboration, open innovation, and formal innovation processes such as stage-gate and agile approaches. This situated perspective is useful because it moves analysis from abstract innovation capabilities or project structures toward the fleeting interactions in which people actually interpret ideas, respond to unexpected results, negotiate expertise, and determine workable next steps.
Even though the practice perspective on innovation acknowledges that ambiguity is a key defining characteristic of innovating, it has rarely been considered conceptually. This paper argues that to fully consider ambiguity, it is necessary to focus on the situations in which those practices are enacted. Building on the work of Lucy Suchman, thus, this paper conceptualizes the innovation process as a chain of interrelated situations. Each situation is (partially) ambiguous at first and requires actors to define it. The paper elaborates on two mechanisms—focusing on matters of concern and drawing on formal procedures—that may be utilized to achieve this. The paper contributes to prior research by (a) shedding new light on the barriers to innovation, (b) reframing the meaning of ‘context’ in innovation research, and (c) emphasizing the role of ‘the mundane’ in innovating.
The paper explains innovation as an ongoing process of making ambiguous situations sufficiently coherent to move forward.
Innovation is not simply the execution of a predefined process. Each action changes what actors encounter next, and elements from earlier situations are actively reenacted in later ones. Innovation therefore develops through a chain of situations whose meaning and relevance continuously evolve.
One way to move forward is to identify what deserves collective attention. By foregrounding a problem, unexpected result, customer need, or design issue, actors establish what is relevant in the current situation and create enough coherence to coordinate further action.
Stage-gate models, agile methods, plans, and other formal procedures can help teams interpret what kind of situation they are facing and identify possible next steps. Their value lies in providing orientation and resources for practical deliberation rather than prescribing the exact course of situated action.
The paper contributes to innovation research by reframing familiar barriers such as different thought worlds, breakdowns, and communication problems as forms of situational ambiguity. It directs attention to how actors temporarily create coherence among ideas, goals, materials, and expertise rather than treating barriers as fixed characteristics of departments, professions, or organizations.
The framework also offers a dynamic view of context. Context is not a static background surrounding innovation but is continuously produced as actors bring elements from prior situations into the present and relate their actions to them. Because ambiguity, novelty, and cross-specialist collaboration also characterize strategizing, forecasting, extreme-context work, and organizing with AI, the situated perspective may travel beyond innovation research.
Innovation teams often respond to ambiguity by searching for better plans or more detailed procedures. The paper suggests a different diagnostic question: what is unclear in the situation right now, and which elements need to be connected before the team can proceed?
Teams can work on ambiguity by explicitly identifying the matter of concern that currently deserves attention and by using formal procedures as orientation rather than rigid scripts. This is particularly relevant when specialists from engineering, marketing, design, science, or external partners need to align around unexpected results or novel problems without assuming that the eventual solution is already known.
