Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Economics of Knowledge Creation
- 2 The Innovation Survey
- 3 Patterns of Innovation: Intensity and Types
- 4 Sources of Innovations
- 5 Research and Development and Innovation
- 6 Effects of Innovation
- 7 Innovation and Research and Development in Small and Large Firms
- 8 Innovation Regimes and Type of Innovation
- 9 The Use of Intellectual Property Rights
- 10 Multinationals and the Canadian Innovation Process
- 11 Financing and the Cost of Innovation
- 12 The Diffusion of Innovation
- 13 Strategic Capabilities in Innovative Businesses
- 14 Determinants of Innovation
- 15 Summary
- Appendix The Innovation and Advanced Technology Survey
- References
- Index
8 - Innovation Regimes and Type of Innovation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Economics of Knowledge Creation
- 2 The Innovation Survey
- 3 Patterns of Innovation: Intensity and Types
- 4 Sources of Innovations
- 5 Research and Development and Innovation
- 6 Effects of Innovation
- 7 Innovation and Research and Development in Small and Large Firms
- 8 Innovation Regimes and Type of Innovation
- 9 The Use of Intellectual Property Rights
- 10 Multinationals and the Canadian Innovation Process
- 11 Financing and the Cost of Innovation
- 12 The Diffusion of Innovation
- 13 Strategic Capabilities in Innovative Businesses
- 14 Determinants of Innovation
- 15 Summary
- Appendix The Innovation and Advanced Technology Survey
- References
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Measuring innovative output is difficult since innovations can differ in many different dimensions. More importantly, economic growth results from innovations of different types. Economic growth clearly results from pathbreaking innovations, such as the computer, lasers, or new chemical entities. But innovations that are not at the frontier can also substantially contribute to growth. Economic growth can result when a firm introduces new products or processes that have already been adopted in other countries but that need to be adapted to special national circumstances. It can occur when firms adopt processes from other industries. Both of these imitative types of innovations involve substantial novelty. Finally, economic growth occurs from more imitative innovations — when firms succeed in improving the products of those who pioneered a new product or process but who could not develop it quickly enough. Economic progress is also enhanced by competitive pressures that ensure that good ideas become good commercial products or processes. Sometimes these changes may simply modify the product to better satisfy consumer demands. At other times, they may involve superior production processes that lower production costs and reduce consumer prices.
Innovation is, therefore, best thought of as a continuous process, whose characteristics often change over the length of the product life cycle. Gort and Klepper (1982) delineated four phases of the product life cycle. In the first, new products emerge and a small number of firms work to develop a commercial product.
- Type
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- Information
- Innovation and Knowledge Creation in an Open EconomyCanadian Industry and International Implications, pp. 185 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003