Title: The innovation dynamics in SMEs: proposal of a method

Authors: Luís Filippe Serpe; Diogo José Horst; Pedro Paulo De Andrade Junior; Dalcio Roberto Dos Reis

Addresses: Department of Production Engineering, Federal University of Technology – Paraná, Av. Monteiro Lobato, km 04, Ponta Grossa – PR, 84016-210, Brazil ' Department of Production Engineering, Federal University of Technology – Paraná, Av. Monteiro Lobato, km 04, Ponta Grossa – PR, 84016-210, Brazil ' Mobility Engineering Center, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Rua Dr. João Colin, 2700, Joinville – SC, 89218-035, Brazil ' Doctoral Program in Business Administration, Business School, University Positivo, Rua Prof. Pedro Viriato Parigot de Souza, 5300, Curitiba – PR, 81280-330, Brazil

Abstract: Innovation management is an issue of central importance to modern firm management, creating discussion concerning managerial topics, definitions, problems and possible solutions. The scope and boundaries of innovation activities have become a matter of great debate, creating further problems in determining which activities are present in a company and what method, criteria or structure should be used to develop improvements for each activity. This paper proposes a method to evaluate a set of innovation activities, helping to guide small companies towards the implementation of innovation within their core managerial structure. The method intertwines the innovation dimensions (dos Reis, 2008), with the four phases of the diagnosis process (dos Reis, 2008). The assessment process was developed through a scoring system, which concentrates the innovation activities in levels (Andrade, 2013). This should help to ease the assessment of innovation deficiencies in companies, by supporting its development through an integrated innovation-driven and market oriented model.

Keywords: multi-criteria decision analysis; innovation management; SMEs; knowledge management; decision support methods; innovation diagnosis; implementation; phases.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2017.087847

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2017 Vol.14 No.4, pp.542 - 559

Received: 15 Oct 2015
Accepted: 27 Feb 2016
Published online: 06 Nov 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article