ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the overall understanding of the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experiences that are needed to increase imagination, creativity, innovation, and new venture creation capability. Innovation and entrepreneur-ship are important for individual personal growth, local and regional industry growth, national economic growth, and worldwide economic prosperity. The chapter focuses on the state of innovation and competitiveness by examining comparative measurements of global innovation and competitiveness; ways to increase innovation capacity and competitiveness. It discusses the value of a learning architecture for applying the innovation and entrepreneurship competency framework. Innovation and entrepreneurship needs to be included in the fundamental training and strategic thinking of every organization. A maturity model is a way to assess the overall effectiveness of an organization. People need to consider small changes and extend their innovation and entrepreneurship thinking beyond instrumentalism, as well, to disruptive thinking in regard to products, services, processes, customer experiences, brands, business models, leadership, and management.
