Beyond ‘Funnel’ and ‘Fireworks’: ‘Water Ribbed Balloon’ as a New Metaphorical Approach to Innovation-in-Practice

Product innovation success has very much to do with the development of models ormetaphors that are able to guide actors. One can observe two traditions in thisregard: rational and non-rational models. Apparently in the former the model, suchas “development funnel”, is regarded as a mechanism and rigid applicable, picturinginnovation as an orderly, goal-oriented, value-neutral, and systematic process. Thelatter account offers a few non-rational models that depict product innovation aschaotic, messy, and stressful which involves jagged lines of activity, much like“fireworks”. This paper draws on the work of Donald Schön to develop a moresocio-politically informed yet pragmatic approach to innovation in organisation i.e.‘ribbed water balloon’. This model outlines product innovation as a non-rational andsocio-technical practice, one that not only reveals politics, uncertainty, unsteadiness,setbacks, and reversals with which actors grapple but also considers rituals, normsand organization’s behavioral world in its understanding.