The document discusses fostering innovation through talent management. It argues that innovation relies on both logical left-brain thinking and intuitive right-brain thinking. While tacit knowledge resides within employees, surfacing this knowledge through reflection can improve process innovation. Regional innovation systems that network local institutions and entrepreneurs can synergize talent and foster "creative regions" with high knowledge spillovers and absorptive capacity. Promoting such creative regions relies on clustering innovation within local and global trajectories rather than just local industrial districts.

1. A Talent for Innovation and How
to Foster It
Frederico Dinis
[frederico.dinis@uc.pt]
Doutoramento em Governação, Conhecimento e Inovação
CES/FEUC

2. Agenda
1. Introduction
2. In two minds
3. A talent for innovation
4. Surfacing tacit knowledge and implicit learning
5. Innovation and local talent systems
6. Fostering local and regional innovation
7. Promoting ‘creative regions’
8. Implications
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

3. 1. Introduction
The term ‘talent management’ has taken off since it was coined
by David Watkins of Softscape in 1998.
A common dictionary definition of talent is ‘a special faculty,
talent, gift’ to which the Oxford dictionary adds several
examples, such as ‘for doing’, ‘for sport’, and ‘looking out for local
talent’.
The dictionary definition of ‘looking out for local talent’ is highly
relevant not only to the world of sport, but to also the issue of
local and regional innovation systems.
Key issues concern creative talent that is latent and as yet
unrealised and whether surfacing it may be a talent-in-itself.
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

4. 2. In two minds
There is increasing evidence from neural research that a talent
for innovative and creative thinking relates to the two
hemispheres of the brain.
It has been known since the 19th century that the left
hemisphere is the domain of speech and calculation. But it also
focuses on what it already knows and feels safer with this.
By contrast, recent neuro-imaging has indicated that it is right
hemisphere thinking which is intuitive, outward rather than
inward looking, less ‘path dependent’ and more of a ‘cognitive
adventurer’ in trying out what is new (McGilchrist, 2009).
Many studies now also show that intuitive lateral thinking can
‘learned up’ (Atkinson & Claxton, 2000; Sadler-Smith, 2008;
Glöckner & Witteman, 2010).
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

5. 2. In two minds
The difference in management has been put by Henry Mintzberg
(1998, pp. 30-31) in claiming that there are two modes of
thinking:
‘One stresses commitment, the other calculation; one sees the
world with integrated perspective, the other figures it as the
components of a portfolio.
The cerebral face operates with the words and numbers of
rationality; the insightful face is rooted in images and feel
(which) explains the renewed interest in strategic vision, in
culture, and in the roles of intuition and insight in management’.
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

6. 3. A talent for innovation
Schumpeter [1911] (1949) claimed that talent for a ‘creative
aptitude’ underlay the ‘bunching’ and ‘swarming’ of product and
process innovation that lifts economies and societies to higher
levels of income and welfare.
François Perroux, extended this in terms of identifying
‘innovation trajectories’ by leading ‘firmes motrices’ (Perroux,
1964) and where the motor is Schumpeterian ‘clusters of
innovation’ rather than only ‘spatial clusters’ as in the industrial
districts of Porter (1998).
The challenge for declining industrial districts is the degree to
which there can be synergic ‘learning up’ by managers,
universities and local authorities which can enhance
Schumpeter’s ‘creative aptitude’.
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

7. 4. Surfacing tacit knowledge and
implicit learning
There also has been increased recognition that much process
innovation lies in what employees know from tacit knowledge
and implicit learning. Thus Ambrosini and Bowman (2001, p.
816) have argued that:
‘Knowledge may be tacit simply because people never thought of
what they were doing, they never asked themselves what they
were doing, and nobody else ever asked it either’.
This implies the psychological challenge for top managers or
entrepreneurs in small and medium firms to ‘delve down to
learn up’ from subordinate managers and ‘lower level’
employees (Oliveira, 2007) on what is being done well, less well
and could be improved through ‘reflective practice’ (Argyris,
2001).
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

8. 5. Innovation and local talent
systems
Phil Cooke (2007) claim that innovation and entrepreneurship
depend not only on networks but also on embedded ‘talent
systems’ which can be fostered by regional and local
governments.
It is now clear that globalisation may advance ‘joint
innovation trajectories’ rather than only undermine cost-based
local industrial district models (Holland, 1993).
Innovation, entrepreneurship and ‘talent systems’ are related also
to talent synergies through local and global trajectories in a
knowledge economy (Cooke, 2007).
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

9. 6. Fostering local and regional
innovation
Schumpeter had challenged linear thinking on innovation as a
residual rather than an asymmetric driving force. Current
interactive innovation models also take into account aspects
increasingly important as informal contacts and tacit
knowledge flows between the different types of actors (Storper
and Scott, 1995).
Maskell and Malmberg (1999) claim that local competitiveness
is associated with the creation of knowledge and the development
of localized capabilities, which promote the learning process.
Edquist (2001) allows for proximity effects between players with
knowledge spillovers, localized mobility of skilled workers
and a large level of collaboration among organizations and that
these effects strengthen and promote innovation dynamics.
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

10. 6. Fostering local and regional
innovation
It is important to recognize that knowledge dissemination and
collective learning are fostered by geographical, institutional and
cultural proximities, often in combination (Keeble and Wilkinson,
1999).
According to the EU Innovation Survey (Comissão Europeia, 2000),
the most innovative regions of Europe are precisely those
where the level of cooperation between the players of the
innovation system is high, underlining the importance of firms for
the regional economy and their need to be positioned as
proactive actors of the regional innovation system, taking the
initiative on promoting innovation and talent.
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

11. 7. Promoting ‘creative regions’
Regional innovation systems foster innovation through
networking talent, and innovation dynamics are gained by
proximity effects that allow firms to enjoy a high level of
knowledge spillovers and symbiosis.
This related variety of relationships between players strengthens
the absorptive capacity of regions enhancing Schumpeter’s
‘creative aptitude’, promoting ‘creative regions’.
Creative regions are not simply regions with a high
concentration of creative industries. They are regions which
synergise these through networking local institutions and
local and global entrepreneurship (Cooke, 2007) without
depending for this on national governments or global institutions.
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

12. 7. Promoting ‘creative regions’
RIS Support System to a Creative Region (Cooke, 2007):
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis

13. 8. Implications
- Networked local-global innovative and learning economies.
- Synergised innovation, creativity & talent.
- Clustering innovation within local and global ‘innovation
trajectories’.
- Transcending the local industrial district model.
- Creating new chains of value.
- ‘Mutual advantage’ between ‘creative regions’ rather than
cost based comparative advantage.
A Talent for Innovation and How to Foster It
Frederico Dinis