Enacting Risk in Independent Technological Innovation

The present study aims at investigating the role of risk in the activity of independent technological venturing. Altogether, 12 deep-interviews were conducted with technological entrepreneurs, who had taken part in the inventive, developmental and the commercialisation phases of a technology-based innovation process. The interviews revealed a number of enactment approaches through which these innovators encountered and affected (dealt with or transformed) risk within the innovation process. Factors thus developed from the empirical material included human capital, pace and priority, the world moves, activating social networks, risk learning, risk incrementalism, maintaining venture agility, and creating and sustaining autonomy. The paper presents a theoretical contextualisation as to the significance of these factors, and finally suggests a number of ways in which these may be interpreted for the benefit of innovation management.