Abstract

The understanding of innovation and its overall emergence has changed considerably over the years. Traditionally innovation has been viewed as the ‘implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations’. (OECD, Eurostat, 2005). Innovation practice meanwhile shows that innovation is by nature a value-free term and comprehensively covers the whole spectrum of activities from discovery to first-time practical application of new knowledge. Moreover, innovation aims to fulfill recipients’ requirements and goals in a new way, and it stresses that risk and uncertainty are inherent at all stages of innovation processes. This understanding has evolved from innovation concepts, models of innovation and innovation processes over decades (for example, Carlsson, Jacobsson, Holmen, and Rickne, 2002; Godin, 2006).