Innovation and the Open Innovation concept

Zusammenfassung

Theory and practice of innovation management lack a clear and generally accepted notion of the term ‘innovation’. On the one hand, literature on innovation management has created a plethora of definitions. Depending on particular research issues, different criteria to describe innovation have been used. However, the scientific discussion is still far from reaching common agreement. Corporate practice, on the other hand, reveals a similar picture. Notwithstanding interfirm differences in defining innovation, even employees working within the same department of a firm do not necessarily share the same understanding of the term innovation, often confusing it with invention.