In his research findings, Esade Associate Professor Jan Hohberger demonstrates that you don’t need to be a creative genius to trigger innovation success, as long as you take into account one crucial factor: prior inventions.

Managers who ignore past ideas may be missing out: “Our research proves that prior inventions are a valuable source of information that can increase the potential success of new innovations.”

Science and innovation have long held that it is beneficial to build on previous ideas – or, to use Isaac Newton’s words, to "stand on the shoulders of giants.” However, to what extent this is true for breakthroughs was open to debate.

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