Innovación y emprendimiento: ordenando el rompecabezas de la nueva gestión empresarial de la innovación

Abstract

[Abstract] This essay aims to clarify the puzzle of new principles and techniques in the field of business management of innovation. These new principles and techniques were born in a widely-connected world with an increasing presence of startups and innovative companies in order to meet pervasive market uncertainty and facilitate implementation of “new-to-market” innovations. The focus is placed on the implications for competitive strategy and business management of innovation. Instead of drawing on Schumpeterian concepts, we use the modern notion of “disruptive” innovations (those upsetting the rules of the game and old structures in a business or industry), as well as the principles and techniques recently developed to approach the uncertainties and costs of innovations: customer development and lean startup. We compare two paradigmatic styles of innovation: the start-ups’ stereotype (the American style) and that of “innovation transfer” (German-European style). Then, we discuss the main orientations of innovation policy with regard to the new industrial initiatives (Industry 4.0 in Germany and Europe and advanced manufacturing in USA) and their counterpoint of start-ups’ innovating creativity across a connected world at the edge of an information revolution.