Entrepreneurship And Innovation: Innovation, Innovation And Failure?

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Most people can provide examples of innovative products such as the iPod or the PC, but few can clearly define the innovative aspects of these products. Among academics, there is a difference of opinion about what the term innovation really means. One definition of innovation taken from the dictionary that fits the ideas and concepts used in this book is the following (The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998, p. 942): Making changes to something established by introducing something new. Every good idea usually replaces an older established one. The goal of every organization is the successful development of good ideas. To express this development of good ideas in innovation, we need to add an addendum to our definition: Innovation is the …show more content…

Organizations can learn from these failures and bring new knowledge (and sometimes technology) to use in future innovative actions that may benefit the organization. In managing the innovation process, destroying poor ideas is often as important as nurturing good ones. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: The terms ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘innovation’ are often used inter-changeably, but this is misleading. Innovation is often the basis on which an entrepreneurial business is built because of the competitive advantage it provides. On the other hand, the act of entrepreneurship is only one way of bringing an innovation to the market place. Technology entrepreneurs often choose to build a start up company around a technological innovation. Innovation and Customers. An important part of the exploitation process is ensuring that the innovation adequately fulfils prospective customers’ needs. The better the innovation fulfils customer needs, the more likely customers are to adopt it. A common mistake technology companies make is to focus on the technological capability of their offering rather than on how that technology can satisfy customer …show more content…

It focuses specifically on technology and how to embody it successfully in products, services and processes. Diffusion of innovation: Without diffusion, innovation will not benefit society at large. Diffusion is the way in which innovations spread, through market or non-market channels. Without diffusion, an innovation will have no economic impact.(OECD, 1992). Advancement in products and processes are crucial for productivity improvement. The innovating firms are not the only ones that benefit from their innovations. When innovations are diffused, they contribute to higher productivity and higher standards of living for an economy as a whole. Therefore, diffusion of innovations has an immediate impact on the well being of an economy. Diffusion of innovation is favourable given that it helps disseminate new techniques, products and services to the wider economy thus allowing the full benefit to be gained. The importance of diffusion has attracted vast amount of research interest in this area and there is a well-developed body of research looking at diffusion of innovations (see Rogers, 1983). Diffusion forms one of the three main streams of research in innovation at the

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