Elements for a sociological concept of innovation

Abstract

Innovation is an almost omnipresent term in the current context of globalization and intense competition. Increased innovative capacity figures among the mainobjectives of governments and managers. However, we still lack an elaborated academic concept of innovation facing its all too generic and narrow use in theeconomic and business discourse. This article argues for a sociological concept of innovation to incorporate it in the modern social theories on economic organizationsand institutional change. This implies its systematic linking with concepts like knowledge, competitiveness and competence. To this end we analyze the three most relevant streams of innovation theory that can be integrated in a new innovation paradigm: the political economy from Marx to Schumpeter, evolutionary economicsand the political economy of development. Then we propose a sociological reconceptualization of the notion of innovation in the context of a socio-economic theoryof dynamic institutions.