The formula for risk analysis of innovation could be written as:
Likelihood of failure X Cost of failure.
Therefore, in a traditional hierarchical organisation, there is an ingrained reluctance to take risks and perhaps fail because of the financial cost, whereas in an open system where there is no apparent cost of failure, the restriction of the usual organisational and transaction costs are largely absent.
This does not reduce the incidence of failure, but it removes the financial costs, leaving the personal incentive to succeed, rather than focusing attention on the financial ones.
It is the personal drive to succeed, to do something useful, that makes lives easier, richer, more fulfilling, which is the source of most really original innovations.
