Talk about the future leads us, nearly always, to the past. And it is not different to innovation, “spring-master” of economic growth guided by the capitalism, which increased the productivity of the world economy over the last two centuries on an unimaginable scale before Industrial Revolution.
As widely known, technological innovation means productivity increasing, that generates more wealth with the available resources and better quality of life for people.
In the first stage of capitalism, the big challenge was wealth generation (economic growth). Secondly, even though the first challenge remained, the main issue was the wealth distribution.
From this point of view, we live now a third stage of capitalism, where the question is the sustainability of the production model developed in the last two centuries. Despite the productivity gains, it would be impossible to extend the standard of living adopted in developed countries to all people of the world and future generations.
Therefore, the future will be characterized by the search for innovations to lead to the challenges of the sustainable development. Alternative business models and new management practices for available resources will be more and more important. Innovation will be conducted by strategic thoughts and integrated management of the resources and human needs.
Productivity gains will continue to play an important role, but not prevalent, due to the natural and physical limits to the economy of scale and scope. New demands will continue to pressure the resources, but the awareness about the finite nature of natural resources and the environmental impacts from production process it will raise.
The evolution of “economic development” and “quality of life” concepts will require a strong integration in the production system components. Despite the harder competition, cooperative business systems of production will become more important in this new business environment. Besides increasing in efficiency and productivity, alternative ways of production, job remuneration and wealth sharing will play an important role.
Therefore, the focus of innovation and its scope will change, including not only products and services but alternative business models and new management practices of the available resources. Instead of efficiency and competitiveness, the challenge will be the sustainability of the productive model. The radical or disruptive innovations will become more important in this scenario, due to the limitations of the economic development current model and the need for alternative models.
At the same time and proportion as the number of knowledge areas increases, the interdependence among them and the interdisciplinary of productive systems and processes will increase. Also the interdependence of academic and productive environments will increase, reducing the distance between the generation and application of knowledge.
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