Innovation: Same concept, at least three understandings
By Sergio Valenzuela-Ibarra
Today it is very common to hear about innovation. Researchers, politicians, managers, and government authorities talk about the benefits of innovation and its importance for countries and companies. Universities study innovation from different fields such as business administration, sociology, psychology, engineer, and economy. It is because innovation has at least three important dimensions.
First of all, there is an individual dimension. It means the characteristics of people which explain innovation as a mental process often associated to creativity. According to this view, innovation could be understood as the ability of people to produce ideas or create new inventions such as products, methods, technology, and original solutions. In this dimension there are important concepts such as creativeness and entrepreneurship which are mainly studied by psychologists and practitioners in the field of management. This research focuses on personality characteristics and factors that determine innovative behaviors in people.
A second dimension of innovation is the called organizational innovation (OI). This dimension is related to the organizational conditions that represent facilitators or obstacles for getting innovations. For instance, a company could have creative people, but it may not be an innovative company. In order to be innovative some important organizational conditions are needed such as an effective leadership from managers, empowered work teams, an adequate organizational structure, and company policies for reinforcing innovation. It means to create an organizational culture for innovation based on beliefs, values, and organizational behavior aligned to a business strategy pro innovation. Of course some organizations need to be strategically innovative more than others.
Finally, there is a political dimension of innovation. It is the general context in which innovation happens and the consequences for the competitiveness of countries. It is possible to recognize the business system as the place where innovation is expressed, that is the market and the interchange among companies. This system is composed of different actors that interact among them under some playing rules and current legislation. Concepts such as market, regulations, competiveness, and economic growth are key elements for understanding the political dimension. National programs for fostering innovation are very common today in several countries.
In short, innovation has three important dimensions which can be studied and could be critical for developing and promoting innovation. This reality not only demands an integrated study of innovation to understand its complexity, but also requires interventions in different levels for impacting on the individual, organizational, and political dimensions of the innovation.
