Innovation Management: Still a Long Way to Go (original) (raw)

2023, Rae-revista De Administracao De Empresas

recent perception is that innovations are the result of systematic investments (not necessarily financial) and efforts aimed at specific targets (Salerno et al., 2010) and are a cumulative process that must be carried out in an integrated manner, not just managing or developing skills in some areas (Tidd et al., 2005). In addition to a flash of genius, successful innovations generally come from a conscious and intentional search for these opportunities (Kruger et al., 2019), so little should be left to chance. Innovation has been taken as almost everything and is everywhere (Kahn, 2018). Organizations and politicians are including it in their statements, organograms, and speeches. Departments and innovation centers already exist or are being created on university campuses, companies, cities, and regions. Through such pervasiveness, innovation is considered the most important and overused word in America (O'Bryan, 2013), resulting in incomprehension and mistakes (Kahn, 2018). A serious discussion of innovation requires rigor with its definitions. The term innovation was first conceptualized by Schumpeter (1934) in "The Theory of Economic Development," in which he defined it as "the new combination of production means, which covers the five following cases, a new: good; method of production; market; source of supply; and organization of industry" (p. 32). The Oslo Manual has marked the field of innovation for the past 25 years, with impact reaching out to both research and industry. In its third edition, it brings the most used definition for innovation: the "implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations" (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD]/Eurostat, 2005, p. 46). The fourth edition of the Oslo Manual (OECD/Eurostat, 2018) brought a new category of innovation, the "Business model innovations," "which can vary from partial business model innovations that only affect either a firm's products or business functions, to comprehensive business model innovations that involve both products and business functions" (OECD/ Eurostat, 2018, pp. 76-77).