A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Oleg Golichenko and Svetlana Samovoleva
exist under different acronyms in many other OECD countries, but also in emerging economies,
transition countries and developing countries (Mairesse and Mohnen 2010).
3.1 Factors influencing inputs for innovation activity
Financial resources, knowledge and human capital constitute a triad of key resources of innovation
process. The shortage of finance resources is one of the most significant obstacles to involve
enterprises in innovation processes (Spielkamp and Vopel 1997, OECD 2010, Golichehko 2011).
Innovation surveys usually show the factor as the following combination of subfactors: “lack of funds
within the enterprise”, “lack of public sources of funding, high innovation cost” (CISt 2006). There is
also emerging evidence that imbalance of demand of, and supply for, quality and quantity of human
capital means that firms become locked into a “low-spec” trap (Porter and Ketels 2003). The
imbalance, usually generated by environment defects, hampers the development of sources of this
resource, the access to these sources and processes of knowledge transfer.
This framework factor denoted on the map (Figure 3) as mismatch between the environment
providing resource sources and the enterprise’s needs is worth including in the cause-effect chain
called “factors-risks”. Because of data limitations, the factor impact can be estimated by the value of
such a subfactor as “lack of qualified personnel” (CIS 2010, CISt 2006) which is usually presented in
the standard innovation surveys.
The problem of resources availability and their transfer can be solved in many respects if firms
manage to intensify and facilitate processes of cooperation and fill the gap in knowledge by transfer of
embodied and disembodied technologies. Accordingly, such factors as “difficulty in finding cooperation”
and “technology transfer difficulties” (CISt 2006) are considered as key factors that firms
face when trying to solve the problem of the resources availability. The latter factor is present in
Russian innovation surveys and absent in European ones.
3.2 Factors influencing outputs for innovation activity
The factors of demand for innovative products are of the greatest interest among ones influencing
outputs for innovation activity. On one hand, the demand is driven by traditional factors such as needs
of consumers, prices of products and product substitutes and so on. But, on the other hand, the
innovative specificity of the demand is largely associated with a novelty of the innovative product and
risks of its consumption, i.e. with readiness and absorption capacity of consumers to adopt the
product.
Challenges on the demand side are linked to the diffusion of innovations and their take-up by
consumers (Bower and Christensen 1995). As regards absorbing capacity of enterprises, it depends
largely on technology level, availability of sufficiently skilled personnel, management skills and so on.
To introduce a radical innovation successfully into the consumer market, it must be commercially
viable but also accepted by households. For households as consumers of innovative products, the
distinguishing features are innovativeness, technological modernism and the ability to absorb new
technology knowledge. The levels of education and age structure of the population have a
considerable influence on the features. The accessibility of education and level of households’ income
are important too. Besides, it is also worth taking into account that innovations spread through a
market in phases (Rogers 1962, 2003). The majority of users usually join in demand for an innovation
product if it becomes more incremental, but also if price competition between suppliers starts and
prices fall. Therefore, the negative impact of the factors discussed above can be recorded in
innovation surveys as “uncertain demand for innovative goods or services” (CIS 2010, CISt 2006).
3.3 Risk factors affecting process of innovation creation and incentives system
The process of innovation creation depends on both the internal and external environment
characteristics of a firm. Among the former there are learning capacity of staff, availability of effective
in-house training systems geared to meet a checklist of competencies within the firm, paradigm of
innovation activity that the firm uses when trying to become more innovative. As for the external
environment characteristics, they include, among other things, a mature market of skilled labour,
availability of human resources in science and technology and education systems being able to meet
current and future needs of innovation development. In the study the insufficient innovation potential
is taken as one of the key aggregate risk factors including components mentioned above.
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