Abstract

The competitiveness of the economy to a large extent depends on its ability to innovate. There is a consensus between researchers and business practices on the high importance of innovation management process, particularly in the earliest stage when it is necessary to identify business opportunities and find the best possibilities for their realizations. In the process of innovation management, many authors emphasize the critical role of idea management and efficient ways of creating, gathering, evaluation, promotion, selection, and implementation of ideas. As part of the research project Models and methods of knowledge management in product by the Croatian Ministry of science, education and sport, a survey was conducted on a sample of Croatian companies which have product development in their production process. The conducted survey attempted to determine the situation in the area of product innovation, as well as in the field of innovation and idea management in the economy and to compare data with best practices. The collected data show when and how the ideas are collected, which motives and purposes are drivers for the collection of ideas and how companies are organized and trained for this demanding job. This paper presents the results of the survey, which suggest ways to improve product development, and sources and methods of collecting ideas. Publication of the outcome of this and other research on product innovation aims to spread the knowledge about this very important but under- explored area.

Highlights

  • In a global business environment, innovation, especially product innovation, is prerequisite for market success, and often for the survival of the company

  • Our goal was to explore how certain activities related to product development, especially related to the early stage of development, were ranked by the participants of the process

  • The spread of knowledge about a particular problem is much greater outside of a particular enterprise than in itself, and limitation to specific frames significantly reduces the field to solve a specific problem. Access to positions such as "we have enough smart employees", or "if we develop ourselves, we will be the first to market" and "we need to control our intellectual property so competitors would not benefit from it," indicate poor knowledge of global conditions and the unwillingness to participate in market trends in today's stage of development

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Summary

Introduction

In a global business environment, innovation, especially product innovation, is prerequisite for market success, and often for the survival of the company. This is why innovation is found on the top of the agenda for many companies around the world. A global study of innovation management [1] found that more than twothirds of the 1356 global respondents considered innovation either "extremely important" or "highly important" for their organizations today. Those impressive numbers seem modest when compared to respondents’ predictions. Among the 10 leading companies from the list of "consumers" of funds for R&D, only two to three companies over the last ten years were on the list of top 10 companies in the perception of their innovation, measured by financial indicators

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