IMPOSSIBLE RESEARCH
Ken Davidian, PhD Owner, Impossible Research LLC impossibleresearch.org
Contact Info
About IRL
Impossible Research LLC (IRL) conducts process research on the topics of innovation and industry emergence within the context of commercial space industries. IRL also offers organization theory and research consulting as well as STEAM outreach.
Understanding Innovation
Change processes of innovation, industry emergence, strategy, growth and learning are not well understood phenomena. Although they are not completely knowable (i.e., making them "unanswerable questions"), how can we optimize these processes without rigorous study to improve our understanding of them?
Today, most publicly-available analyses collect information and convert it into data, but they neither attempt to understand the underlying phenomenon of interest nor do they validate the relevance of the data to the phenomenon.
To rectify both these shortcomings, Impossible Research uses process research methods to identify relevant data to address unanswerable questions.
Technical Stuff
Researchers use variance methods (e.g., sophisticated statistical methods to test the validity of hypotheses and the variance, covariance, etc. of quantitative data) to collect and analyze data, without acknowledging the underlying phenomenon of interest.
Process research methods, developed and matured since the 1980s, use mixed (qualitative and quantitative) methods and multiple visual, contextual, statistical, and other methods to analyze datasets and identify patterns of the innovation process. The data sets are harder to collect but the findings are richer in context and detail than typical variance research analyses.
Read more about process research methods here.
Relevant Experience
Space industry work experience since 1983, including U.S. Government, private industry, academia and publishing.
Technical undergraduate degrees include a BS in Aero & Astro Engineering from Ohio State University and a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.
Business doctorate degree with an emphasis on strategy, industry emergence and innovation process from the University of Cape Town, Graduate School of Business.
Professional society memberships: IAF, IAA, AIAA
Recent Publications
"Space Tourism Industry Emergence: Description and Data", New Space, Volume 8, No. 2, 2019.
Historical Event Chart of Space Suborbital Tourism Industry Segment Emergence
"What makes space activities commercial?", Acta Astronautica, Volume 182, May 2021.
"Taxonomy of market-level space organizations". Acta Astronautica, 213 (September), 231–239.
About the Name
Why "Impossible Research"? The innovation process is chaotic (in a mathematical sense) meaning although specific innovation paths (like industry emergence) are unpredictable, the underlying patterns are not. This means questions about industry emergence, although ultimately unanswerable, can be studied and better understood, given guidance, perseverance and drive:
"To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow and
to run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong and
to love pure and chaste from afar.
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star."
And this is the "quest" of Impossible Research, "to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far," to find unresolved answers to unanswerable questions.
IMPOSSIBLE RESEARCH
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