AMR Paper Development Workshop

Innovation scholarship in management has traditionally focused on the invention and commercialization of novel products and services by incorporated entities operating under a profit motive. Grounded in foundational theories of search, recombination, and evolutionary dynamics, this body of work has developed rich insights into how firms generate and capture value from innovation—often through isolating mechanisms such as patents, secrecy, lead time, design, and complementary assets.

However, this firm-centered perspective has largely overlooked a distinct and increasingly consequential innovation process: assetization—the creation or institutionalization of new asset classes that underpin emerging markets or reconfigure existing ones. From the historical formation of money, debt instruments, and intellectual property rights to more recent developments such as carbon and biodiversity credits, credit default swaps, renewable energy certificates, and cryptographic tokens like Bitcoin, assetization involves innovation processes that differ fundamentally in both origin and purpose.

Unlike conventional product or process innovation, assetization is often initiated by non-firm actors—including governments, multilateral institutions, activist groups, or decentralized networks—and its success depends less on exclusion and more on diffusion and legitimacy. In this theoretical exposition, I argue that assetization warrants distinct analytical treatment within innovation studies. I contrast assetization with traditional innovation across two dimensions: (1) the nature of the originating control structure (public, private, or decentralized), and (2) the geography and topology of demand. I show that, for assetizers, strategies of value capture cannot rely on traditional isolating mechanisms; indeed, these may hinder rather than help. Instead, assetization requires mechanisms that promote widespread adoption, standardization, and trust—marking a shift from exclusionary to inclusionary innovation logics