Generativity Theory of Entrepreneurship
Distinct from the popular medical/psychological definition of generativity, which defines the concept as a need to nurture and guide younger people and contribute to the next generation, the generativity theory in relation to entrepreneurship focuses on the development of technology stemming from the foundations set by previous innovations. According to Zittrain (2006, p. 1980) generativity refers to “technology’s overall capacity to produce unprompted change driven by large, varied, and uncoordinated audiences”. The keyword here being ‘unprompted’. Zittrain suggests that the innovations and outcomes are unintentional and occur without purposeful intent. He also notes that the outcomes of these activities in turn become the basis for future innovation. Yoo et al. (2010) expands on Zittrain’s definition and illustrates generativity as a layered model where innovation on one layer’s technology can have a cascading effect on other layers. An example of this is a camera using available