Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
different national contexts, thus affecting the viability of product
development in general as well as access to market share.
There is a vast body of literature that examines the relationship
between innovation and commercial success. Broadly speaking,
innovation is the process of creating something new while
commercialization is the process of taking an innovation to market.
Within the field of innovation studies, the relationship between these
two different concepts is much disputed, with research into this
dynamic dating back to the Industrial Revolution and the origins of
modern economics. In particular, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel's
analysis of the relationship between technological change and
economic growth in
The Communist Manifesto
(2004 [orig. 1848])
is arguably one of the earliest conceptualizations of the role that
technological change, or innovation, plays in economic development
(Rosenberg, 1974).
Economist Joseph Schumpeter is usually attributed as being the
key figure most responsible for introducing the study of innovation
into twentieth-century economics. For Schumpeter, economic growth
is created by 'waves of creative destruction' caused by innovation.
The definition of innovation attributed to Schumpeter is 'doing
things differently in the realm of economic life' (Sweezy, 1943: 93).
Significantly, the main agents of innovation, in Schumpeterian
theory, are entrepreneurs (Sweezy, 1943). Even now, the role of
entrepreneurs is central to understanding the innovation process.
Seventy years ago, entrepreneurs were defined as individuals who
have the capacity to see the possibilities of an innovation, whether
or not they are the inventor, and demonstrate leadership in
implementing change (Sweezy, 1943).
Since Schumpeter's work in the economics of innovation, some of
the other factors that have been the focus of considerable research
and are argued to play a contributing role in innovation include
competitiveness of firms (Porter, 1990), knowledge flows within and
between industries (Cooke, 2010), the role of learning in national
development (Lundvall 2010), the function of universities (Mowery
and Sampat, 2005), market size (Mowery and Rosenberg, 1979),
management of firms (Pavitt, 1990) and diffusion of innovations
(Rogers, 1962), to name a few. While the best method of understanding
