Test general innovation

Innovation: A Conceptual Frame

• Innovation is a new or improved product or process that significantly differs from the previous one.
• Invention is a new way of doing something, plus commercialization or public provision.
• Research and development is systematic work to increase knowledge and create new applications.

R&D Activities

• Basic Research aims to develop new scientific knowledge without immediate applications.
• Basic research is usually conducted in large firm labs or universities.
• Applied Research uses existing knowledge to solve specific problems, leading to new technologies and patents.
• Experimental Development focuses on producing prototypes and improving existing processes.

Innovation Implications

• Innovation is crucial for business competitiveness and growth.
• Generic technologies can create and destroy industries (e.g., steam, electricity, IT).
• Innovation is essential for economic growth and diversification.
• Innovation is a route to sustainable development.
• Creative Destruction: New technologies challenge existing organizations.

Types of Innovations

• Process Innovation: Modifies the production method without changing the product itself.
• Product Innovation: Changes the product itself (e.g., new versions, radical replacements).
• Radical Innovation: Major changes (e.g., voice recognition, hybrid cars).
• Incremental Innovation: Minor improvements (e.g., improved phone services, Windows 7).
• Social and Sustainable Innovation:
  • Frugal Innovation: Reduced resource use.
  • Green/Eco-Innovation: Environmental protection.
  • Inclusive Innovation: Improves the lives of marginalized groups.
  • Pro-poor Innovation/Bottom of the Pyramid Innovation: Innovation for the poor, made by the poor.

Linear Model (Science Push)

• Scientific advances drive technological change.
• Separation between stages of innovation.
• Focus on scientific breakthroughs.

Chain-Link Model

• Shows a central chain of innovation involving market identification, development, and market entry with feedback loops.
• Depicts the trial-and-error process.
• Important for knowledge and research in each feedback loop.

Innovation Management

• Small firms often be the source of innovation.
• Flexibility and dynamism for small firms.
• Large firms have financial capacity control risks.
• Resource-based View: Competitive advantage in valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable resources.
• Core competences: differentiates the firms from competitors, difficult to copy.
• Competence-enhancing innovation builds on existing knowledge.
• Competence-destroying innovation renders existing knowledge obsolete.

Measuring Innovation

• Knowledge is crucial to the market.
• Private sector often underinvests in R&D due to uncertainty and imitation risk.
• Balance between R&D and openness.
• Network management: coordination between actors in innovation ecosystem.
• Tacit knowledge: communication barriers and potential loss of insight.
• Imitators: entities that copy innovations without investment.
• Direction failure: Innovation doesn't align with societal needs.

Open Innovation

• Focus on internal capabilities and resources.
• Innovation is a proprietary and internal affair.
• Change towards open innovation: Decline in strategic advantage of internal R&D, greater knowledge producers.
• Open innovation focuses on external collaboration.
• Internal focus vs. external collaboration.
• Linear process vs. iterative process.

Models and Tools for Innovation Management

• Innovation scorecards/reports provide general overview with different perspectives.
• Dynamic capabilities: Adapting effectively; e.g., iPod - sensing, seizing, transforming, resulting.
• Open innovation model is inbound/outbound.
• SECI Model: Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization.
• Community of practice (CoP) model: Sharing knowledge and expertise in a specific area.

Diffusion of Innovation

• Gap between known and used innovations.
• Diffusion is the process of communicating innovation to society.
• Depends on perceptions, benefits.
• Role models: lead users influence diffusion.
• Information cascades and network effects can impact diffusion patterns.
• Technology diffusion that respects the broader interest of society.

Technology Transfer and Uni-Business Relations

• Technology transfer: moving technologies between organizations.
• Universities increase socioeconomic returns from R&D.
• Firms want access to technology, knowledge, and facilities.
• Universities benefit from funding, reputation, and student training.
• Challenges: Lack of information, differing interests (short-term vs. long-term, public vs. private).

National Innovation Systems

• Neoclassical economics limitations in explaining economic growth.
• Firms don't innovate in isolation; need support.
• National innovation systems: Network of institutions supporting innovation.
• Institutions include firms, universities, government agencies, and regulations (e.g., IP laws).
• System failures (weak links) can be a rationale for policy intervention.

Globalization of Innovation

• Globalisation of innovation via collaboration and faster diffusion.
• Demand-driven factors: proximity to customers, local market adaptation.
• Supply-driven factors: skilled personnel, access to labs, and low-cost support.
• Globalization implications: centralization vs. decentralization, location, integration, cultural factors.

Public Policies to Promote Innovation

• Government policies aiming to enhance regional capacity for innovation and improve society's quality of life.
• Examples: regulations, financial instruments, soft instruments, and public-private partnerships.
• Critical considerations in policy decisions: time frame, target actors, technologies, and potential limitations/interactions between policy instruments.