Innovation as multi-level evolutionary knowledge production

Summary form only given. In case studies of 42 innovations it was observed that innovation processes exhibit many hazards, errors, and unplanned events. These observations do not fit into the image of planned rational innovation management which is often seen to be the key to success. But they are understandable within the framework of evolutionary epistemology of D.T. Campbell which says that every genuine increase in knowledge (or better fit of a system to its environment) is achieved through blind variation and a following selection and retention. It is shown that pure trial and error, imitation, creative problem solving, communication, leadership, organizational decisionmaking, economic competition, cultural learning, political pluralism, and scientific progress all function as a blind-variation-and-selective-retentio mechanism and that they all are important for a proper understanding of innovation processes. Innovation means the production of new knowledge which-logically-cannot be derived from the old existing knowledge; it can only be produced through blind variation, and therefore error and chance must play a decisive role