A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Christos Apostolakis, José Carlos Rodríguez and Mario Gómez
entrepreneurial innovation. An adapted version of this general guideline that would encourage the
innovation process is presented, as it follows:
� Question the current practices about innovation at a market and society levels;
� Consider carefully the purpose served by the current range of services offered by the
organisation;
� Explore external timing and market opportunities;
� Set out competitor organisations’ weaknesses;
� Deliver new and better value for money;
� Search wide and far;
� Seek to challenge conventional wisdom (Lynch, 2012: 291-292).
What follows then is the implementation of a resource-based view approach to the context of the
Canadian higher education’ sector with the aim to find out about the possibility of how entrepreneurial
innovation can flourish.
4. Methodology
Methodology-wise the paper was based on a combination of collection of primary and secondary
data. The research methods that were encountered were twofold: semi-structured interviews and
secondary data. This triangulation approach could make justice to the point of view made by Marshall
and Rossman (1999) that such an approach can enhance generalisation of data. The semi-structured
interviews were conducted within a time span of about 5 years and reflected on the progress of
entrepreneurial innovation in a particular Canadian university. In addition, numerical data from 7
surveys on the progress of a range of Canadian universities regarding certain questions were used.
As the data didn’t indicate any evidence of statistical analysis their usefulness is primarily indicative.
This is not to say that the findings lacked of validity quite the opposite. As this is the first paper on
resource-based view and entrepreneurship it is anticipated that more research will be done on this
particular topic. As Denscombe (2010) argues quantitative data give the research an aura of scientific
respectability.
In terms of limitations, it could be argued that it was the tight time schedule for writing up this paper
that has created certain issues of collected data with no focus on specific issues that would have
needed further investigation. To this extent, there is significant scope for the paper to be expanded
research-wise with the aim to produce findings that could specifically answer all the uncertainties of
implementing entrepreneurial innovation at the university level.
5. Entrepreneurial innovation in Canadian Universities
There are an increasing number of indications that entrepreneurship is becoming a vital component of
existence for today’s Canadian universities. According to Menzies (2009:7):
� Over the 5 years between 2004 to 2009 Entrepreneurship courses at universities across Canada
became increasingly popular, with a 33% growth rate;
� The number of students taking Entrepreneurship courses has increased by 27% since 2004;
� The national growth rate for undergraduate Entrepreneurship courses between 1979 and 1999
was 444%. From 1999 to 2004, the growth rate was 9%, and for 2004 to 2009 was 22%;
� The national growth rate for graduate Entrepreneurship courses between 1979 and 1999 was
232%. From 1999 to 2004, the growth rate was 5%, and for 2004 to 2009 was 56%.
This increase in interest has to do with the development of a different mentality amongst university
staff and students, which supports entrepreneurial activities as a source of innovation and creativity.
One of the authors had the opportunity to visit a particular university in the eastern part of Canada in
2007 and experience a unique situation in which students from different schools not only declared
their belief on the qualities of entrepreneurship but they were taking specific action in creating
student-focused incubators (from observations of one of the authors).
Table 1 confirms the demand for entrepreneurship as the only 72 entrepreneurship courses of 1979
went to be a staggering 466 in 2009. To this extent the issue for resources becomes paramount for
the higher education institutions of Canada and this could be highlighted via a framework that would
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