The concept of innovation is the result of human activities carried out to produce a new product, service or something new that creates value. More recently, the idea of an innovative enterprise, organization or company has emerged, thanks to an increasing interest in innovation as an essential process in a variety of economic, technological and sociological contexts. This book is part of a set on Innovation between Risk and Reward and focuses on the close relationship between innovation and knowledge. It provides the reader with the outline of an innovative company, focusing on the organizational aspects that contribute to defining it and sketching out the profile of what an innovative company is or should be in the age of knowledge. The authors explore the literary corpus in order to outline the state of the art but also the reality of innovative enterprise in the form of meetings and interviews with both large and small companies.

The genesis and diffusion of innovation depends upon the density of the cognitive and market relationships among individuals, organisations and institutions at both the micro- and macro-economic level. This book presents a progressive enquiry into the economic and social origins of innovation.

Non, les délocalisations ne sont pas une fatalité. Elles sont le prix à payer pour ne pas avoir identifié les ruptures et les marchés de demain qui assureront le CA futur. Les entreprises européennes, en général, et françaises, en particulier, souffrent d'un manque de culture en matière d'innovation. Les mécanismes en sont rarement compris et la pratique à l'avenant. L'ouvrage propose, d'une part un diagnostic sévère qui vise à rappeler l'impératif d'innovation au regard des évolutions économiques et, d'autre part, il montre comment mettre en place une stratégie d'innovation et la traduire sur les plans de l'organisation et de la culture d'entreprise.

In an uncertain economy where business risk is significant, the company tends to rely more on its environment than to invest, for example, in all steps of technological creation; This can be explained by the fact that investments in the acquisition (ownership) of production resources are less expensive than those implied in the formation of these resources; which also explains the attractiveness (in an open economy) of regions with abundant scientific and technical resources. To understand and analyze the innovation process in order to better design and launch new goods, services and technologies, one has to consider the creative dimension of the individual, the business and the organization in general. In new approaches to innovation, the entrepreneur and the company are analyzed through their skills, and their function of resource generation; Innovation thus becomes endogenous, gradual or radical, integrated in a complex process with many feedbacks and interactions. The innovative organization (small or large) is presented in this book as a dynamic system composed of specific and diverse skills (including those of the contractor, engineers or managers). By acquiring, combining and mobilizing these skills, the innovative agent (entrepreneur or company) can create technological resources and develop relations with its environment. Hence the importance of management in design, implementation, protection of intellectual property as well as of the development of new goods, services and technology, commercial and organizational models.

Six years of UNESCO-World Technopolis Association workshops, held at various world cities and attended by government officials and scholars from nearly all the world’s countries, have resulted in a uniquely complete collection of reports on science park and science city projects in most of those countries. These reports, of which a selected few form chapters in this book, allow readers to compare knowledge-based development strategies, practices, and successes across countries. The chapters illustrate varying levels of cooperation across government, industry, and academic sectors in the respective projects – and the reasons and philosophies underlying this variation - and resulting differences in practices and results.

Cet ouvrage est le deuxième de la série « L'innovation entre le risque et la réussite ». Son objectif est d’esquisser le profil d’une entreprise innovante capable de maintenir et déployer sa compétitivité. L’entreprise innovante, un objet mal identifié analyse les principales caractéristiques d’un tel type de firme d’après la littérature scientifique sur le sujet et des exemples puisés dans le contexte organisationnel fait de petites et grandes entreprises. L’ouvrage présente cinq principaux leviers qui définissent la main (in)visible de l’entreprise innovante. Il considère l’innovation comme un processus basé sur les connaissances et met en évidence les dimensions humaine, sociale et durable dudit phénomène. Le lecteur, qu’il soit dirigeant d’entreprise, manager, collaborateur ou étudiant, trouvera dans cet ouvrage un éclairage actualisé sur les concepts « d'innovation » et « d'entreprise » tous deux multi-facettes et fortement évolutifs.