Measuring Innovation Potential in Organizations: Ecuador as a Case of Emerging Economies

• In Event: The (Un)Promise of Enterprise 3.0: Data Mining, Data Analytics and Market Innovations in the Global South

Abstract

Nowadays in globalized markets the ability to innovate is the key of success for organizations. In academia and society there are the consensus that innovation is a dynamic force that improves productivity and it is a necessary condition for the growth of an economy. Moreover, quantification of social phenomena such as innovation is attractive because of their numerical representation gives us the possibility of comparing characteristics and determining ranges between different units of analysis. There is a wide range of criteria to evaluate innovation, in this way, OECD & EUROSTAT (2018) conceives "The Oslo Manual" as a global reference frame in continual evolution (4th editions) that suggest what can and should be measured in order to homogenize the information about innovation in organizations. Consequently, most of innovation measures has been designed from a global perspective and for this reason they are not adaptable to the context of emerging economies. Then, this study proposes the construction of the latent concept called “innovation potential” as a part of a measurement methodology which take into account the organizational Ecuadorian context as a case of emerging economies. The latent concept “innovation potential” helps to better understand the measurable variables that should be included in the quantification methodology that considers the local context of organizations and not only the global suggestions for measurement of innovation. Then, identified variables will be part of a methodology for quantifying the innovation potential of organization contextualized to emerging economies.

Author

• Veronica Paulina Morales Arevalo, Escuela Politécnica Nacional