INNOVATION MANAGEMENT IN COMPANIES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE: POPPER, KUHN, LAKATOS, AND FEYERABEND IN DIALOGUE

Abstract

This paper discusses innovation management in companies through the lens of four traditions in the philosophy of science — Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend — without granting priority to any of them. It starts from the definition of innovation management found in the management literature itself: the process of creating conditions for a company to develop and implement new ideas through an opportunity funnel that progressively filters what is worth testing. Inside that filter, at every stage, managers face a question they never name as such: how much trust should an untested idea earn? Managers test market hypotheses, defend business models as if they were paradigms, protect a strategic core while adjusting peripheral tactics, and frequently mix methods in ways no management textbook honestly describes. The paper examines how each of these four epistemological readings illuminates a different facet of this practice — trial and error, organizational paradigm change, the defense of a long-term strategic commitment, and methodological pluralism — and draws on recent empirical evidence about innovation management in technology-based companies, micro and small enterprises, and innovation clusters to show that these four logics coexist in practice, even when managers never name them that way. The conclusion is that none of these philosophical currents is sufficient on its own to explain how innovation happens inside organizations; each one covers a blind spot the others leave uncovered.