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      Theoretical Elements: A Multidisciplinary Framework between Sociology and Management of Innovation

      In line with the aim of this handbook, which is to allow a realistic explanation of the innovation processes at work in the field of sport, we shall develop in this theoretical part the main contributions of several approaches from sociology and, to a lesser extent, from socioeconomics and management sciences. The description of these theoretical currents is coupled with another intention: to reflect on how they are structured.

In this regard, a clarification is needed now as to the respective projects of management sciences and economics, on the one hand, and of sociology and anthropology, on the other. If not clearly stated, this sometimes leads to misunderstanding, which can make interdisciplinary dialog difficult. Sociologists and anthropologists have essentially focused on understanding the spread of innovations (whether social, cultural, industrial, political, etc.), their adoption in different cultural milieus, which is synonymous with the transformation of practices and uses. Less concerned with cultural dimensions than with organizational and industrial issues, specialists in management science and economics seek to identify (and, to a certain extent, prescribe) the best way to successfully commercialize a novelty, with a singular focus on technological innovation. From then on, the innovative company, its stakes and the expected return in terms of added value are central (Godin 2017). Appropriation on the one hand, commercialization on the other; although this division is often schematic, it is nonetheless rooted in a certain epistemological reality, even if several theoretical approaches propose going beyond it.

1.1. Classical approaches to innovation

      Schumpeter’s thinking has already been mentioned, and it is of great importance in the work on innovation, since the economist has contributed to highlighting the driving role of innovation in economic evolution, including through its paradoxes (Schumpeter 1935). In particular, we owe him the famous “creative destruction” achieved by the novelty that competes with the old to the point of harming it. He drew up categories that are still used today, including that of typology (product innovation, organizational innovation, process innovation, etc.) and degree (difference between major and minor innovation). Above all, he highlighted the decisive action of an economic agent: the entrepreneur. The latter is not necessarily an inventor (or even a company founder), but a creative and persevering actor, capable of reconfiguring both the resources of the organization and the economic circuits (Munier 2013).

      This classical approach has the advantage of highlighting the centrality of innovation in the creation of value in the sports sector (see for example (Chantelat 1992)). It allows us to account for the long time span between invention and innovation in many cases. In this respect, it is interesting to note that recommendations from management science and economics generally encourage the acceleration of processes, in order to increase the pace of innovation and, in so doing, the chances of success (Segercrantz et al. 2017). This acceleration, which aims to prevent competition from taking advantage of innovations, is not without ambiguity: the multiplication of destruction cycles can lead to the lasting destabilization of markets.

Above all, it is important to avoid focusing on providential entrepreneurs, on the one hand because the exceptional figure of the enlightened entrepreneur can be criticized as a chimera (Mustar 1994), but also, as we shall see, because it obscures many other actors and factors. This perspective is not self-evident, since we have been used to seeing innovation as essentially the work of avant-garde individuals capable of recombining productive systems. A recent history (Schutt 2012) of the manufacturer Petzl (technical outdoor sports equipment) describes the founder (Fernand Petzl) and especially his son (Paul Petzl) as visionary, determined and driven by a desire to innovate and capable of anticipating new needs and practices in order to reconfigure outdoor markets. While the career paths and sociological or personal characteristics of innovators must certainly be taken into account in innovation trajectories, they cannot be an exclusive explanatory factor for the fate of new products.

      This caution is all the more necessary as we sometimes see the individual figure being substituted by that of the organization in studies. Following the example of the visionary entrepreneur, companies with exceptional characteristics (decompartmentalized, learning, hybrid, etc.) are designated as the driving force behind successful innovations. The Salomon company thus appears to be an ideal type of creative, even intuitive, organization, capable of managing uncertainty in order to regularly bring about innovations (Moingeon and Métais 1999; Puthod and Thévenard 1999; Desbordes 2001; Deroy 2004; Bueno Mérino et al. 2010). The Décathlon group – and one of its private labels, Quechua – are in turn analyzed as a hybrid organization capable of combining rational and turbulent processes in the service of effective innovations (Hillairet et al. 2010), in a description that seems somewhat idealized.

      Moreover, Schumpeter’s brainwave leaves the concrete conditions of the success of innovations in the dark (aside from a mechanism of imitation of the innovator by follower companies). The work of Rogers (1995) would deepen the study of diffusion mechanisms, characterizing the way in which a novelty, more or less easily adoptable, spreads in a context (historical, social, technological, etc.) that is more or less favorable. The progressive adoption of an innovation by a growing number of users is done by persuasion and imitation, via a “trickle-down” movement (from the producer to the consumer, from the pioneers to the laggards, from the upper classes to other social circles). The success of an innovation is described as being linked to a double movement between certain endogenous factors which favor (or don’t favor) its progressive spread towards a market which is variably favorable (thus exogenous factors).

      Several favorable characteristics of innovation can be singled out:

      Salomon’s arrival on the ski market in the 1990s, through a strategy of innovation (Desbordes 1998, 2001), is thus interpreted in the light of an organized rationality, centered on these factors of success: advantageous technological breakthrough for the skier, compatibility with the current practice of skiing, “visibilization” of the innovation, progressive marketing to validate the trialability, etc. The widespread uptake of the monocoque ski was described