Innovation Defined, a Survey

Innovation Defined, a Survey

Van der Kooij, B.J.G.

Technology, Policy and Management

Innovation Systems

2013-05-16

This paper focusses on the definition of the word ‘innovation’ as used in scholarly manuscripts (books and articles) about the topic of Innovation. The research was done in 1988, and reported in the Dutch Language in a Research Paper of the University of Eindhoven (The Netherlands). As preparation for a comparable larger study in 2013, the original material is reprocessed, updated and presented here in the English language. The basis for this analysis is a group of 76 definitions from the period 1952 – 1988 (and Schumpeter’s definition from 1934). They resulted from a total of 300 manuscripts covering the subject Innovation. This population had been classified according to eight variables that were created from the keywords found in the definitions themselves. Variables like ‘’Subject’, ‘Stimulus’, ‘Moment’, ‘Novelty’, ‘Change’, ‘Object’, ‘Reference’,’ Success’. Of each of the definitions the year, nation and field of origin was registered. This paper consists out of five segments. In the Prologue we describe why we initiated the survey and the method used for searching for definitions of the word ’Innovation’. In the second part we describe the way we classified the found definitions. In the third part we present our observations for both the individual variables and for the definition profiles. In the fourth part we define and falsify the hypotheses. Finally in the Epilogue we try to reach an overall conclusion about what could be considered the abstract version of a definition. The Addendum gives all the definitions and their citations. ________________________________________________________________________________ This internal report presents the findings of a prelimenary survey on the definitions of the word 'innovation' in schoalrly literature till 1988. It will be followed by a larger study (2013) on definitions that will be used for a PhD-dissertation. The purpose of making these findings available on the Repository is to invite readers to contribute to the follow up study by submitting the defintions of the word 'innovation' they found in literature. It would be highly appreciated that, next to the exact quote of the definition, the reference is added (endnote-format). We are looking forward to create, with the help of 'the wisdom of the crowds', a large collection of definitons as possible. You are invited to participate (till the end of 2013) and your contributions will be highly appreciated.

Innovation
Definition

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6a5624c9-e64e-4426-98e9-f239f8aaba18

Institutional Repository

report

(c) 2013 Van der Kooij, B.J.G.