Business Innovation: measurement, treatment and decision making in uncertain environments

Abstract

It is generally accepted that innovation is a source of competitiveness for companies and nations. The impact of innovation activities on business performance ranges from the effect on sales and market share to the improvement of productivity and operational efficiency. At a national level, the main effects of innovative activities are characterized by the raise of the sectorial competition, this increases the yield of the productive industry, along to the systematical permeation of know-how to the linked business networks.

The first definition of the concept of innovation was established by Schumpeter (1934), indicating that innovation is what we call in a non-scientific way, economic progress. The UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI, 1998) mentions that innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas. The Oslo Manual (OECD, 2006) indicates that an innovation is 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.

It is noteworthy that the concept of innovation involves elements such as economic progress, business success, successful exploitation, etc. But, how does this happens exactly? Identifying the implications of innovative activities in business performance is highly relevant, as it opens a path for assisting a key issue in innovation research: systematically determine which resources, from those intended to manage continuous change within companies are justified, moreover, categorize which of them have had a major impact on the organization’s goals and objectives.

The formula to address the previous question is somehow logical and has been widely studied by several authors. It consists on collecting information of the determinants of success or failure of companies in specialized studies on innovation management, then generating a list with the most relevant and frequent characteristics and elements, finally applying a scoring system to the selected best practices (Tidd and Bessant, 2013). However, that method faces complex challenges in the innovation environment: the heterogeneous terminology, dissimilar views and definitions of the concept, among other elements obstruct a standard measurement framework. Thus a correct evaluation, quantification and comparison of the innovative competencies of the organizations is highly challenging, since there is no single or main tendency to evaluate the measure of innovation. It is conventionally accepted that innovation is a concept demarcated by uncertainty. Thus, one of the most recurring problems is to treat innovation information with traditional methodologies, "the uncertainty that the innovation process entails is manifested by the fact that only one third of the new products introduced in the market end up being successful, a proportion that seems not to have been overcome in the last decades" (Velasco et al., 2008). Despite innovation is, by its nature, governed by random processes, in the business reality innovation must be the result of a deliberate process, guided by human intuition, intelligence and foresight (Cotec, 1999). It is therefore necessary to understand and manage the innovation process, so that there is little room for chance (Tidd; Bessant and Pavitt, 2005).

Motivated on shedding light to the scientific gap found in the literature, we present our proposal, which is mainly focused in the application of methodologies and techniques for the treatment of information under uncertainty towards innovation management measurement and its interlaced complex decision-making process.

Es generalmente aceptado que la innovación es una fuente de competitividad para las empresas y para las naciones. El impacto de las actividades de innovación sobre los resultados de las empresas va desde el efecto sobre las ventas y la cuota del mercado hasta la mejora de la productividad y la eficiencia operacional. Los principales beneficios a nivel de nación se distinguen por el incremento de la competencia sectorial, lo cual eleva el rendimiento total de los factores productivos, así como el derrame del nuevo saber-hacer, que permea de forma sistémica las redes empresariales.

Es notorio que alrededor del concepto de innovación se encuentran elementos tales como progreso económico, éxito empresarial, solución de problemas, etc. Por lo tanto, identificar las implicaciones que las actividades innovadoras suponen al rendimiento de las empresas es relevante, ya que abre camino para asistir un aspecto clave entorno a la innovación: determinar de forma sistemática qué recursos, de aquellos destinados a gestionar el cambio continuo dentro de las empresas es justificable, y más aún, cuáles de ellos han impactado mayormente a los objetivos y metas de la organización.

La fórmula para conocer éste aspecto clave resulta de cierta forma lógica y previamente estudiado por varios autores. Consiste en recopilar información del éxito o fracaso empresarial documentado en estudios especializados en factores determinantes de innovación, a continuación, generar una lista con las características y elementos más relevantes y frecuentes, finalmente aplicar un sistema de puntuación con las mejores prácticas encontradas, sin embargo, tal método se enfrenta a retos complejos como lo es la heterogénea terminología, disimiles puntos de vista alrededor de la innovación y desemejantes definiciones del concepto. Así pues, una correcta evaluación, cuantificación y comparación de las competencias innovadoras de las organizaciones es complejo ya que no existe una tendencia única o principal para evaluar la medida la innovación.

Motivados por acortar la brecha científica encontrada en la literatura, presentamos nuestra propuesta, que se centra en la aplicación de técnicas para el tratamiento de la información en la incertidumbre destinadas a apoyar la toma de decisiones hacia la gestión de la innovación y el cambio continuo en la empresa.