Title: What is innovation?: Insights and perspectives on the term 'innovation'

Authors: Robert Lorenz

Addresses: Institute for Technology and Innovation Management, Straße des 17.Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany

Abstract: |Innovation| is a broad term and often mingled with other meanings. The diverse understanding of the term |innovation| may be due to different research goals, but may also be caused by the nature of the inter disciplinary research field of innovation management. Therefore, literature proves a plethora of definitions concerning the term innovation. In order to build a broad picture of innovation and its antecedents, the term |innovation| will be integrated into a framework. In the framework definitions are arranged according to an input-output view, where the various perspectives of innovation are highlighted. Furthermore, terms like imitation and invention are delimitated to innovation. In the end the paper suggests an integrative definition of |innovation|.

Keywords: innovation definition; innovation management; creativity; value capture; imitation; innovation culture; innovation type; degree of innovation; diffusion.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTIP.2010.033924

International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning, 2010 Vol.6 No.1, pp.63 - 75

Published online: 04 Jul 2010 *

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