Innovation

At the root of the development of our species from our primitive beginnings to the recent stunning advances in technology, communication, and social complexity, has been innovation—the development and implementation of improved processes, products, or procedures. Yet, despite the fascination with individual creativity, innovation is not a solitary activity that results from the vigorous championing of one idea by one individual. Innovation is more usually the result of concerted activities in groups of people, developing and implementing their ideas of a period, and then diffusing successful innovations throughout organizations or societies.

Without recourse to complex academic definitions, it seems simplest and most helpful to distinguish between creativity and innovation implementation. Creativity is the development of new ideas, whereas innovation implementation is the application of those new ideas in practice. Using this distinction between creativity and innovation implementation (in which creativity and innovation implementation are included under the heading of innovation), it then becomes clear that creativity is a characteristic of individuals, whereas innovation implementation is something that can be accomplished by individuals, groups, organizations, or even whole nations.

Innovation can be defined as those behavioral and social processes whereby individuals, groups, or organizations seek to achieve desired changes or to avoid the penalties of inaction. The term innovation is generally restricted to intentional attempts to bring about benefits from new changes. These changes might include economic benefits, personal growth, increased satisfaction, improved group cohesiveness, and productivity and economic gains. If a change occurs unintentionally, it is generally not considered an innovation.

Further, innovation implies both usefulness and novelty. An innovation must aim to produce benefits to the individual, group, organization, or wider society. Innovations can vary in relation to their novelty, from those that are relatively minor to those that are of great significance.

The most influential approaches in the study of creativity and innovation agree that it is important to consider the role of individual characteristics as well as to identify how other factors at different levels of social complexity such as the group context, the organization, and the larger society influence the unfolding of the innovation process. This entry focuses on the factors influencing innovation at the lower levels—the individual and the team.