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EVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF INNOVATION IN THE GLOBALLY CHANGING
BUSINESS WORLD
Aleksandra PEČIŪRIENĖ
Vilniaus Kolegija / University of Applied Sciences,
Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Abstract
In the past decades innovation has evolved as the main driver of business success and sustainability as well as
an accelerator of worldwide economic growth and globalisation. The notion of “innovation” is more and more
broadly exploited by diverse stakeholders as a slogan, metaphor or buzzword. Recently the “need for
innovation” fever spreads over all spheres of science and social life. But historically innovation implicitly was
not a subject of scientific research till the end of the 19th century. Since the first decades of the 20th century
the concept of innovation started spreading over different fields of economic science anyhow related to
business theory and practice. However there is still a lack of theoretical methodological research on business
related innovation. The purpose of the paper is to identify, describe and visualize the developmental trends of
business related innovation understanding, conceptualizing and measuring. Thus the paper discusses different
concepts, definitions, types, aspects, and measuring approaches of business related innovation that have been
developed and introduced in international resources in historical retrospective. Besides the coherent analysis
implemented on the empirical data of Lithuanian and other EU countries enterprises inter alia relating to
several specific types of innovation – namely categorized as product, process, organizational and marketing –
is presented. Conclusions summarize main findings of the paper.
Keywords: innovation, types of innovation, measuring of innovation, innovation-active firm, innovative firm.
Introduction
In the past decades innovation has evolved as the main driver of a business success and
sustainability as well as the accelerator of worldwide economic growth and globalisation.
The notion of “innovation” is more and more broadly exploited by diverse stakeholders as a
slogan, metaphor or buzzword. Recently the “need for innovation” fever spreads over all
spheres of science and social life. Briefly stated, innovation has become the emblem of the
modern society, a panacea for resolving many problems, and a phenomenon to be studied
(Godin, 2008). But historically innovation implicitly was not a subject of scientific research
till the end of the 19th century. Since the first decades of the 20th century the concept of
innovation started spreading over different fields of economic science anyhow related to
business theory and practice. However there is still a lack of theoretical methodological
research on business related innovation phenomenon.
The purpose of the paper is to identify, describe and visualize the developmental trends of
business related innovation understanding, conceptualizing and measuring. Thus the main
objectives of the paper:
To explore different concepts, definitions, types, aspects, and measuring approaches of
business related innovation that have been developed and introduced in international
resources in historical retrospective;
To estimate the innovativeness rate of Lithuanian and other EU countries target
enterprises by the types of innovation – namely categorized as product, process,
organizational and marketing.
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