Exploring the dynamics of novelty production through exaptation: a historical analysis of coal tar-based innovations

Theories of technological change fail to account for innovation stemming from affordances of previously developed artefacts. The literature has highlighted that novelty can originate from market needs, from inferences made from scientific theories or be the object of deliberate technology projects in technology-push models. More recently, scholars have suggested that exaptation, defined as the co-option of artefacts for new functions, may constitute a different path to novelty production. However, the link between the existing artefact and the genesis of new functions driving exaptation is underexplored. Through a longitudinal case study of instances of emergence of new technologies stemming from a single compound, coal tar, we show that exaptation plays a role in all novelty production and, in some cases, it is its main determinant. We build a model of exaptive novelty production that captures the interactions between secondary effects of existing technology, affordances, functionalities, and the emergence of new functions. Our model enriches the theory of innovation by integrating both serendipitous and planned processes as well as both artefactual characteristics and human intentionality.