innovation

A detailed Summary of innovation

Innovation is the first commercial application/production of new product, process or system. It includes managerial and organizational innovation as well as technological innovation. Innovation can lead to economic growth for a nation, increase the profits of firms, generate new products and markets, safeguard old markets, enlarge the variety of products on offer to the consumer and eventually increase the quality of life.

Some early models of innovation are the 'technology-push' and 'need-pull' models. According to the 'technology-push' model, "discoveries in basic science lead eventually to industrial technological developments which result in a flow of new products and processes to the marketplace". (Rothwell, p.49) In the 'need-pull' model, "innovations arise as the result of a perceived, and often clearly articulated market need".(Rothwell, p.49) Both of these models are only one-sided approaches.

Advocates of 'technology-push' tend to use examples like the laser or the nuclear energy, where there was not any potential market, while advocates of 'need-pull' tend to use examples like the synthetic rubber, which was invented and innovated because of a clearly existing need.

The vast majority of the innovations lies somewher

A great difficulty about all these case studies, is that we do not know how far they are representative of the innovation process. It is certainly not claimed that they are securely based statistically or empirically. "The 'universe' of innovations or inventions is not known and therefore no strictly random sample can be drawn".(Freeman, p.219) Thus, we cannot really say if the factors used for evaluating the success or failure of an innovation are neither necessary nor sufficient.

At 1972, Laugrish made another study. He examined 84 innovations that received the queen's award for technological innovation in 1966 and 1967. He identified seven factors as important in every innovation in order to succeed: the presence of an outstanding person in a position of authority; the need identification; the presence of specialist knowledge; availability of resources; realization of potential usefulness of a discovery; help from government resources; good co-operation.

1. Freeman, C. and Soete, L., (1997), The economics of industrial innovation, London: Pinter, Ch.8, Success and failure in industrial innovation

There was not any strong systematic evidence that success depended on the size of the firm, or any relationship between success and the number of scientists and engineers on the main board of the innovating company. No relationship was found between success and the capacity to set and fulfill target dates or association between failure and the attempt to innovate in unfam

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