ABSTRACT
Over the last few decades, innovation has become widely recognized as both a major goal of economic activity and one of the most important instruments through which organizations and countries gain and sustain competitive advantage in globally competitive marketplaces. A central plank of the European Community’s industrial policy, for example, is that:
A close link is usually made between science and innovation as a source of competitive advantage, for example, when “Science and Technology” are identified as a cause of economic progress and a reason for the acquisition of firms in the “new” knowledge society. At the organizational level, some claim (for example, Crawford, 1991) that innovation is a key functional activity in organizations, in much the same way as marketing or finance are. Product innovation is then thought of as a routine operation like any other that organizations perform. Others suggest (for example, Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995; Kanter, 1989) that innovation is a key survival strategy for organizations because it enables more rapid adaptation to turbulent environments. Innovation then
becomes a primary indicator of an organization’s ability to adapt to its environment (Ansoff and McDonnell, 1990). Over the past few decades, this acclamation of innovation has become highly prominent as technological and scientific advancement, particularly in information and communication, increasingly affects every aspect of people’s lives.
