The measurement of innovation for management, Research and policy

Cristian Gangaliuc

doi:10.2478/rsc-2019-0008

Abstract

Abstract This paper is a literature review regarding the known practices of measuring innovation, for policy, research or management purposes. Article is deliberating on the importance of known and most notable methodologies, such as innovation survey, interviews, case studies and mixed research. The following methodologies are presented with regard to their strong and weak points, to perform an objective evaluation and exemplification. Alongside methodologies, paper concentrates on the practices of innovation measurement, such as approaches taken by the OECD and EU assessments, presenting the possible angles that can be conceptualized during conceptualization and innovation measurement. The article ends with the presentation of the concept of Management of Innovation, that is a growing paradigm that emphasizes the ability of an actor to innovate rather than its development outcomes. Following the line of presented methodologies, approaches and considerations, conclusions outline that innovation is becoming more and more a social phenomenon, rather than a purely technical one. That presents an opportunity to build practices of including innovation into the semiotic and economic dialogue of national and supranational bodies, and not limit the policy of innovation to regional or national strategies.

Highlights

Economic realities are too complex and unstructured to be the subjects of analysis and measurement
From the early XXth century, since Schumpeter elaborated his statement regarding the essence of competition, delivering a model of innovation’s occurrence/functioning mechanism was a continuous interest for the scientific community and policymakers
The risks are associated with the inability to cover all the occurred innovations since not all of the newly implemented changes are registered via a patent, trademark, or other intellectual property (IP)

Summary

Introduction

Economic realities (as a sum of total economic factors) are too complex and unstructured to be the subjects of analysis and measurement. In the process of reduction of complex nature of empirical phenomena, societies resorted to the usage of economic imaginary. Economic imaginaries represent only particular elements of economic reality that are presented in a fixed individual, organizational and institutional manner (Jessop and Oosterlynck 2008). | 36 RSC Volume 11, Issue 2, May 2019 the modern economic, sociologic and technological fields, one of the most prominent imaginaries is the concept of innovation. The concept had been notably discussed since works of Porter (1990), Granovetter (1985) and other scholars that conceptualized spatial and network reliance of the innovation phenomenon

Methods

Results

Conclusion