Abstract

Imagine your pharmaceutical company is struggling with an innovation problem related to molecular biology. Who would you go for help, a biologist who is an expert in the problem domain or a social anthropologist?

If you are like most, you will consult the biologist. And this is for a good reason; research has provided many strong arguments for why an insider like a biologist rather than an outsider like an anthropologist is more likely to solve your innovation problem. After all, insiders know the territory, which is often viewed as a necessary condition for being able to make a creative contribution to a domain.

While consulting an anthropologist for a molecular biology problem might seem far-fetched, many major breakthroughs in biology have actually originated from unexpected sources including anthropologists. This is often attributed to fresh perspectives of outsiders that might be novel for the problem domain. A case in point outside the field of biology is the Auto-Tune technology. Described as “the invention that changed music forever”, it was developed by a complete outsider to music industry, a petroleum engineer named Harold Hildebrand.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the submitted version of an article published in California Management Review, SAGE. The published version can be read online at https://cmr.berkeley.edu/2021/09/the-making-of-creative-breakthroughs/
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management H Social Sciences > HM Sociology Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Departments:	Bayes Business School > Management

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