What is innovation? One of the problems in
managing innovation is variation in what people understand
by the term. Drucker (1985) defines innovation as the
specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they
exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or
service. It is capable of being presented as a discipline,
capable of being learned, capable of being practiced. Betz
(1997) assumes that innovation is to introduce a new or
improved product, process, or service into the marketplace.
Tidd et al. (1997) define innovation as “a process of turning
opportunity into new ideas and putting these into widely
used practice.” Afuah (1998) proposes that innovation is
the use of new technical and administrative knowledge to
offer a new product or service to customers. The product or
service is new in that its cost is lower, its attributes are
improved, it now has attributes it never had before, or it
never existed in that market before.