ABSTRACT
No matter which business you are involved in, innovation is important. Innovation is a critical issue for sustaining and growing firms, not only at the corporate level, but also at the small, entrepreneurial level. Much has been written in recent years about innovation and what it represents to countries, businesses and the hospitality industry. Innovation drives a country’s economic engine. For example, Britain’s weak economic performance in the early 1980s is attributed to its industries’ insufficient design and innovation efforts (Ughanwa and Baker 1986). Conversely, Japan’s economic strength after World War II was mainly due to the ability of Japanese industries to develop new, high-quality products that satisfied consumer needs (Barclay and Benson 1990). Hence, there is considerable historical evidence for Drucker’s (1999) assumption regarding management challenges of the 21st century: that innovation is one core competence that every organization needs.
