Models of Innovation

Abstract

This chapter presents a historical examination of models used to explain innovation. It focuses on the attempts to describe innovation as a process generating new products and methods and outline the activities involved. The purpose of these models isto explain how all parties come together to generate commercially viable technologies. The overview includes six generations of models, namely black box, linear, interactive, systems, evolutionary models and innovative milieux. Each of them is explained by addressing the following issues: conceptualization background, the model itself and its elements, explanatory power, related models and concepts, and further research directions.