혁신의 한계: 가치 창출 혹은 가치 이전?

This study makes a media-based account of the possibility of innovation-induced social value, which draws on the demand-based view of innovations and is presented as a viable alternative to the competition or capability-based views of innovations. The argument of this study has the following structure. First, we view as a necessary condition for the creation of social value a market-creating innovation that explores and designates the non-consumer, i.e., the opportunities outside the boundary of the current market, which develop in the form of a novel category of commodities. Those not accompanying the exploration of non-consumer are a project that transfer social values from one party to the other, not creating new values. Second, the exploration of non-consumer is not a sufficient condition for the creation of social value, for the economic success of an innovation is subject to its comparability with the extant system of difference that distinguishes the offerings of producers and governs the choices of consumers. The requirement of comparability, from which head-to-head competition ensues, applies to any innovation, irrespective of whether its goal is deemed to present a demand-shifting innovation or to a market-creating innovation. Lastly, the authenticity of a commodity resides in the system of difference in product offerings and a market-creating innovation that cuts across the extant boundaries of product markets remains ambiguous in the eyes of the consumers, who hesitate to try innovations. The creation of a new market that resonates with the extant system of difference may deflect or interfere with a future market afterwards. To conclude, the economist discovery of the non-consumer cannot be value-creating, for it enhances the current system of difference by obsolescing partially and on an ad hoc basis the system with its own new commodity.