Szostak, M. (2025). The aesthetical perspective of post-Schumpeterian innovations. In J. Chen & R. Lenart-Gansiniec (Eds.), Handbook on Post-Schumpeterian Innovations (pp. 148–165). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035322510.00017
According to Schumpeter, the process of technological change in a free market contains three components (Schumpeter, 1949): 1) invention (conceiving a new idea or process), 2) innovation (arranging the economic requirements for implementing an invention), and 3) diffusion (whereby people observing the discovery adopt or imitate it). While Schumpeterian innovations were centred around individual entrepreneurs driving radical technological changes and economic growth (Godin, 2008; Hagedoorn, 1996), post-Schumpeterian innovations represent a new era of more collaborative, interdisciplinary, global, and socially conscious innovation. They encompass a broader range of innovations, including those focussing on services, experiences, and sustainable development. With a growing focus on sustainability and social impact, post-Schumpeterian innovations take ethical considerations into account. Post-Schumpeterian innovators are more conscious of potential negative consequences and aim to create solutions that align with ethical and moral standards. Following the ethical considerations focused on the value of Good–and extending them by adding the other two values of Plato’s Triad, that is, Truth and Beauty–we enter an extensive field of aesthetical considerations regarding innovation. In the next step, transferring these considerations into the management field, we can speak about the aesthetics of innovation management. Examining post-Schumpeterian innovations from the management aesthetics perspective involves understanding how the aesthetic dimensions contribute to and shape these innovations.