Biocultural innovation: Innovating at the intersection of the biosphere and ethnosphere

Abstract

Scientists, economists, and politicians increasingly recognize that Indigenous peoples possess invaluable knowledge and practices that have the potential to drive innovation to solve critical global challenges. Indeed, thousands of important drugs—including lifesaving cancer treatments—have their origins in centuries old Indigenous knowledge and practices. Similarly, Indigenous practices have fueled the fast‐growing regenerative agriculture industry that is able to yield windfall profits while sequestering carbon and enhancing biodiversity. Referred to in policy circles as biocultural innovation—a form of innovation that occurs at the intersection of the biosphere and ethnosphere—hundreds of diverse examples from a wide array of industries have been documented outside of the innovation literature. However, innovation scholars have yet to recognize or embrace biocultural innovation. We argue that this major oversight hinders practice and leaves untapped potential for solving issues such as slow or unsustainable economic growth, ecological decline, and inequality. To address this gap, we provide a clear definition of biocultural innovation, differentiate it from other innovation domains, and establish its conceptual foundations. Informed by economic theorizing that views the ethnosphere and biosphere as assets, we propose that these assets share four traits: functionality, potentiality, vulnerability, and inseparability (“FPVI shared traits”). Due to their immense biocultural diversity, we assert that these assets carry an “option value” representing enormous innovation potential that can be converted, conserved, or constructed to solve global challenges (the “3Cs”). We conclude by identifying promising avenues for future research on biocultural innovation and a call for action on how to unlock economic and social value while supporting biocultural assets and Indigenous rights.

Fueling innovation management research: Future directions and five forward‐looking paths

“…Literature reviews require a certain maturity level in streams of research and a substantial base of scholarly works within a domain. In contrast, special issue editorials and alternative formats (such as Catalyst articles) provide more latitude with evidence used to build a research agenda, ranging from deep experience (e.g., Verganti, 2008;Verganti et al, 2020) and engagement with a particular context (e.g., de Massis et al, 2018), to more exploratory assessments of phenomena and technologies (e.g., Bouschery et al, 2023;Vassallo, Banerjee, & Prabhu, 2023). Finally, special and virtual issue editorials have provided scholars with an opportunity to reflect on the state of a particular domain in innovation management and outline research priorities for the future (e.g., Hopp et al, 2018).…”

Building successful careers in innovation management across academia and industry

“…Five original research articles, spanning the broad thematic and methodological scope of the innovation management domain, complement the guest editorial and Catalyst in this issue. A second Catalyst in this issue, by Vassallo et al (2023), expands the scope of innovation typologies by introducing the concept and phenomenon of biocultural innovation, calling for biosphere and ethnosphere considerations to be part of our scholarly inquiries. We hope you enjoy reading all these contributions.…”