Measuring innovation

TRAINING WORKSHOP ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION INDICATORS

Cairo, Egypt
28-30 September 2009

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Measuring Innovation
Oslo Manual - 2005: (Guidelines
for collecting and interpreting
innovation data)
(central reference document for the statistical
definition of innovation and forms the basis for
surveys of innovation throughout the world)

UIS - Annex to the Oslo Manual

Measuring Innovation in
Developing countries

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WHY measure innovation?

Innovation key to the growth of output and

productivity.

The relationship between innovation and

economic development is widely
acknowledged.

Innovation policy should be evidence-based.

Innovation data to better understand

innovation and its relation to economic
growth; to provide indicators for
benchmarking national performance.
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WHAT is innovation
An
innovation
is the implementation of a new or significantly
improved product (good or service), or process, a
new marketing method, or a new organisational
method in business practices, workplace
organisation or external relations.

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The innovation measurement framework

Business enterprise (all firms, organisations and institutions whose primary activity is the market production of
goods or services (other than higher education) for sale to the general public at an economically significant price,
as well as the private non-profit institutions mainly serving them. Includes public enterprises). This includes

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Chain-linked model of innovation

(Rosenberg & Kline, 1986)

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Symbols

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Types of innovations

Product innovation: introduction of a good or service that is

new or significantly improved with respect to its characteristics
or intended uses. This includes significant improvements in
technical specifications, components and materials,
incorporated software, user friendliness or other functional
characteristics.

Process innovation: implementation of a new or significantly

improved production or delivery method. This includes
significant changes in techniques, equipment and/or software.

Marketing innovation: implementation of a new marketing

method involving significant changes in product design or
packaging, product placement, product promotion or pricing.

Organisational innovation: implementation of a new

organisational method in the firms business practices,
workplace organisation or external relations.
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Degree of novelty

Diffusion

New to the firm

New to the market

New to the world

Disruptive innovations

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Degree of novelty

Diffusion is the way in which innovations spread, through

market or non-market channels, from their first worldwide
implementation to different consumers, countries, regions,
sectors, markets, and firms. Without diffusion, an
innovation will have no economic impact. The minimum
entry for a change in a firms products or functions to be
considered as an innovation is that it must be new (or
significantly improved) to the firm.

New to the firm: A product, process, marketing method, or

organisational method can already have been implemented
by other firms, but if it is new to the firm (or in case of
products and processes: significantly improved), then it is
an innovation for that firm.
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Degree of novelty (continued)

New to the market:

the firm is the first to introduce the innovation onto its market.

The market is defined as the firm and its competitors.

The geographical scope is subject to the firms own view of its

operating market and thus can include both domestic and
international firms.

New to the world:

the firm is the first to introduce the innovation for all markets and
industries, domestic and international.

implies a qualitatively greater degree of novelty than new to the

market.

Disruptive innovations:

an innovation that has a significant impact on a market and on the

economic activity of firms in that market.

focuses on the impact of innovations as opposed to their novelty.

These impacts can, for example, change the structure of the

market, create new markets, or render existing products obsolete.
However, it might not be apparent whether an innovation is
disruptive until long after the innovation has been introduced.
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Innovation activities
Innovation activities
are all scientific, technological, organisational,
financial and commercial steps which actually, or
are intended to, lead to the implementation of
innovations. Some innovation activities are
themselves innovative, others are not novel
activities but are necessary for the implementation
of innovations. Innovation activities also include
R&D that is not directly related to the development
of a specific innovation.

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Innovation activities for product

and process innovations

Intramural (in-house) R&D: This comprises all R&D conducted by the enterprise,
including basic research.
Acquisition of R&D (extramural R&D): R&D purchased from public or private
research organisations or from other enterprises (including other enterprises within
the group).
Acquisition of other external knowledge: Acquisition of rights to use patents and
non-patented inventions, trademarks, know-how and other types of knowledge from
other enterprises and institutions such as universities and government research
institutions, other than R&D.
Acquisition of machinery, equipment and other capital goods: Acquisitions of
advanced machinery, equipment, computer hardware or software, and land and
buildings (including major improvements, modifications and repairs), that are required
to implement product or process innovations.
Other preparations for product and process innovations: Other activities related
to the development and implementation of product and process innovations, such as
design, planning and testing for new products (goods and services), production
processes, and delivery methods that are not already included in R&D.
Market preparations for product innovations: Activities aimed at the market
introduction of new or significantly improved goods or services.
Training: Training (including external training) linked to the development of product or
process innovations and their implementation.
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Innovation activities for marketing

and organisational innovations

Preparations for marketing innovations:

Activities related to the development and
implementation of new marketing methods.
Includes acquisitions of other external knowledge
and other capital goods that are specifically
related to marketing innovations.

Preparations for organisational innovations:

Activities undertaken for the planning and
implementation of new organisation methods.
Includes acquisitions of other external knowledge
and other capital goods that are specifically
related to organisational innovations.
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Kinds of innovation activities

Successful in having resulted in the

implementation of a new innovation (though they
need not have been commercially successful).

Ongoing, work in progress, which has not yet

resulted in the implementation of an innovation.

Abandoned before the implementation of an

innovation.

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Classifying firms by degree of

innovativeness

The innovative firm is one that has introduced an

innovation during the period under review. The innovations
need not have been a commercial success many
innovations fail.

An innovation active firm is one that has had innovation

activities during the period under review, including those
with ongoing and abandoned activities. In other words,
firms that have had innovation activities during the period
under review, regardless of whether the activity resulted in
the implementation of an innovation, are innovation active.

A potentially innovative firm is one type of innovation

active firm, that has made innovation efforts but not
achieved results. This is a key element in innovation
policies: to help them overcome the obstacles that
prevent them from being innovative (converting efforts
into innovations) Annex for developing countries.
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Factors influencing innovation

Objectives: Identifying enterprises motives for

innovating and measuring their importance

Hampering factors: reasons for not starting

innovation activities at all, or factors that slow
innovation activity or have a negative effect on
expected results. These include economic factors,
such as high costs or lack of demand, enterprise
factors such as lack of skilled personnel or
knowledge, and legal factors such as regulations
or tax rules. The ability of enterprises to
appropriate the gains from their innovation
activities is also a factor affecting innovation.
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Objectives and effects of

innovation

Competition, demand and

markets

Replace products being phased out

Increase range of goods and services
Develop environment-friendly products
Increase or maintain market share
Enter new markets
Increase visibility or exposure for
products
Reduced time to respond to customer
needs

Production and delivery

Improve quality of goods and services

Improve flexibility of production or
service provision
Increase capacity of production or
service provision
Reduce unit labour costs
Reduce consumption of materials and
energy
Reduce product design costs
Achieve industry technical standards

Reduce production lead times

Reduce operating costs for service
provision
Increase efficiency or speed of supplying
and/or delivering goods or services
Improve IT capabilities

Workplace organisation

Improve communication and interaction

among different business activities
Increase sharing or transferring of
knowledge with other organisations
Increase the ability to adapt to different
client demands
Develop stronger relationships with
customers
Improve working conditions

Other

Reduce environmental impacts or

improve health and safety
Meet regulatory requirements

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Factors hampering innovation

activities

Knowledge factors:

Innovation potential (R&D, design, etc.)

insufficient
Lack of qualified personnel: Within the
enterprise / In the labour market
Lack of information on technology / markets
Deficiencies in the availability of external
services
Difficulty in finding co-operation partners for:
Product or process development /
Marketing partnerships
Organisational rigidities within the
enterprise: Attitude of personnel/ managers
towards change, Managerial structure of
enterprise
Inability to devote staff to innovation activity
due to production requirements

Institutional factors:

Lack of infrastructure
Weakness of property rights
Legislation, regulations, standards, taxation

Cost factors:

Excessive perceived risks

Cost too high
Lack of funds within the enterprise
Lack of finance from sources outside the
enterprise: Venture capital / Public sources
of funding

Market factors:

Uncertain demand for innovative goods or

services
Potential market dominated by established
enterprises

Other reasons for not

innovating:

No need to innovate due to earlier

innovations
No need because of lack of demand for
innovations

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Impacts and outcomes

Impacts of innovations on firm performance range

from effects on sales and market share to changes
in productivity and efficiency. Important impacts at
industry and national levels are changes in
international competitiveness and in total factor
productivity, knowledge spillovers of firm-level
innovations, and an increase in the amount of
knowledge flowing through networks.

The outcomes of product innovations can be

measured by the percentage of sales derived from
new or improved products.
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Linkages

The innovative activities of a firm partly depend on the variety and structure of
its links to sources of information, knowledge, technologies, practices, and
human and financial resources. Each linkage connects the innovating firm to
other actors in the innovation system: government laboratories, universities,
policy departments, regulators, competitors, suppliers, and customers.
Innovation surveys can obtain information on the prevalence and importance of
different types of linkages, plus the factors that influence the use of specific
linkages.

Types of external linkages:

Open information sources provide openly available information that does

not require the purchase of technology or intellectual property rights, or
interaction with the source.

Acquisition of knowledge and technology are purchases of external

knowledge and capital goods (machinery, equipment, software) and
services embodied with new knowledge or technology that do not involve
interaction with the source.

Innovation co-operation is active co-operation with other firms or public

research institutions for innovation activities (which may include purchases
of knowledge and technology).
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Sources for transfers of

knowledge and technology
Internal sources within the enterprise:
R&D
Production
Marketing
Distribution

Other enterprises within the enterprise group

External market and commercial sources:
Competitors
Other enterprises in the industry
Clients or customers
Consultants/consultancy firms
Suppliers
Commercial laboratories

Public sector sources:

Universities and other higher education institutions
Government/public research institutes
Private non profit research institutes
Specialised public innovation support svcs

General information sources:

Patent disclosures / Professional conferences,
meetings, literature and journals / Fairs and exhibitions /
Professional associations, trade unions / Other local
associations / Informal contacts or networks / Standards
or standardisation agencies / Public regulations (i.e.
environment, security)

Open
information
sources

Sources for
purchases of
knowledge
& technology

Co-operation
partners

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Data collection: The survey

approach

The subject based approach starts from the innovative

behaviour and activities of the firm as a whole. The idea is
to explore the factors influencing the innovative behaviour
of the firm (strategies, incentives and barriers to innovation)
and the scope of various innovation activities, and above all
to examine the outputs and effects of innovation. These
surveys are designed to be representative of all industries
so the results can be grossed up and comparisons made
between industries.

The object approach involves the collection of data about

specific innovations (usually a significant innovation of
some kind, or the main innovation of a firm). The approach
involves collecting some descriptive, quantitative and
qualitative data about the particular innovation at the same
time as data is sought about the firm.
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Innovation & R&D surveys

R&D and innovation are related phenomena which can lead

some countries to consider the combination of R&D and
innovation surveys. There are a number of points for and
against:

Overall response burden of the reporting units will be reduced.

Length of questionnaire could lead to a decline in response rates.
Possibility of analysing the relations between R&D and innovation activities at the
unit level.
Units not familiar with the concepts of R&D and innovation can confuse them.
Efficient method of increasing the frequency of innovation surveys.
The frames for the two surveys will generally be different. For example, the frame
population for innovation surveys may cover industrial classifications (and small
units) that are not included in R&D surveys. Combining them might involve sending
questions about R&D to a large number of non-R&D performers that are included in
the frame population for the innovation survey, and this would increase the cost of
the joint survey.

In principle, other business surveys can also be merged with

innovation surveys, including surveys on the diffusion of ICTs,
and on the adoption of knowledge management practices.
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Expenditures

Total expenditure for innovation activities comprises current

and capital expenditure incurred for the innovation activities
defined above. Current innovation expenditures are
composed of labour costs and other current costs. Capital
expenditures for innovations are composed of gross
expenditures on land and buildings, on instruments and
equipment and on computer software. Capital expenditures
that are part of R&D are included in intramural R&D, while
non-R&D capital expenditures linked to product and
process innovations are included in acquisition of
machinery, equipment and other capital goods. Non-R&D
capital expenditures specifically linked to marketing or
organisational innovations are included in preparations for
marketing innovations and preparations for organisational
innovations, respectively. The remaining categories of
innovation activity consist solely of current expenditure.
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Classification by main economic

activity

Statistical units of innovation surveys can be

broken down by different classifications. The most
important classification is the principal economic
activity of the statistical unit (industry). The
International Standard Industrial Classification
(ISIC Rev. 3.1) is the appropriate international
classifications for this purpose. Countries that use
a national industrial classification system rather
than ISIC Rev. 3.1 should use concordance tables
to convert their industrially classified data to ISIC
Rev. 3.1.
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Classification by size detailed:

number of employees

1-9

10 - 49

50 - 99

100 - 249

250 - 499

500 - 999

1 000 - 4 999

5 000 and above.

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Classification by type of institution

Private enterprise:

National (no Controlled Affiliates (CA) abroad)

Multinational:
Foreign-controlled affiliates (where the affiliate does not control
any other affiliates abroad).
Foreign-controlled affiliates with CAs (parent companies under
foreign control).
Parent companies with CAs abroad (parent company not under
foreign control).

Public enterprise,

Resident non-financial corporations and quasicorporations that are subject to control by government
units.
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Annex to the Oslo Manual

After the publication of the 2nd Oslo Manual, also

developing countries started conducting innovation
surveys.

The design of the surveys was intended to comply with

Oslo Manual standards, with adaptations for capturing
the particular characteristics of innovation processes.
Adaptations were prepared by each country separately
and with different approaches.

Bogot Manual published by RICYT (Ibero American

Network on S&T Indicators) first effort to compile
particularities and guide the design of cross-nationally
comparable innovation surveys.
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Annex to OM (continued)

Annex to Oslo Manual 3rd edition: Innovation

surveys in developing countries

UIS circulated a base document prepared by

RICYT to a vast network of experts in the
developing world covering China, Thailand,
Singapore, Malaysia, Hungary, India, Lebanon,
South Africa, and Tanzania.

UIS drafted the final annex based on this input.

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Characteristics of innovation in
developing countries

Size and structure of markets and firms:

- SMEs, Large firms (operate sub optimal production scale, higher
unit cost, less efficiency)
- Competitiveness (based on cheap labour, exploitation of
natural resources. Not on efficiency, differentiated products) leads to fewer R&D and innovation projects.

Instability: - wide difference in potential for innovation limits long term innovation activity.
Informality: - rely on informal practices lack of systematic application not favourable
innovation

for

Particular economic and innovation environments:

- prevalence of state-owned enterprises, para-statal enterprises lack of
competitiveness discourage innovation. Some state-owned enterprises technological leader
- S&T policies in countries with less
developed economic system more impact on innovation than strategise of private enterprises. - Innovation
in agriculture sector high economic impact.

Reduced innovation decision-making powers:

- externally controlled or multinational
organization. Technology transfer is a fundamental source of innovation.

Weak innovation systems:

Characteristics of innovation:

- fewer resources to innovation activities. - Government

perform and finance R&D. - low level of resources are devoted to R&D by businesses reduce innovation
potential of enterprises. - weak linkages (Uni/R&D Inst/BE) challenge capabilities to overcome technology
related problems in BE.
Incremental changes; organizational changes.

- acquisition of embodied technology (equipment);

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Innovation measurement in
developing countries
The definition of innovation needs to
remain unchanged, as well as those
concerning its subtypes.

The concept of potentially innovative firm

is incorporated.

Measurement priorities:

Innovation capabilities (Human resources, Linkages,

Quality assurance systems, ICTs)
Expenditure on innovation activities
Organizational innovation

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Principal adaptations

ICTs in innovation surveys

Linkages

strategic use of new technologies (Front office vs Back office)

To understand firms different linkages matrix of linkage agents and

types of linkage
geographical location of linkages; local, regional, national

Innovation Activities

Hardware purchase, and Software purchase

Industrial design, and Engineering activities
Lease or rental of machinery, equipment and other capital goods
In-house software system development
Reverse engineering

Human resources (by qualification, occupation, gender)

training

Quality and environmental management

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Methodological issues for

developing country contexts

Information systems specificities relative weakness

of statistical systems weak linkages between surveys and data sets
prevent use of info. from other surveys in the design of innovation surveys. lack of business
registers problems in the sample frame. Involvement of NSO experience in the design
of industrial surveys; registers and background info.; higher response rate; wider-ranging
analysis. no basic info. on firms performances (sales, investment, exports) relationship
between action taken by the firm for innovation and market performance.

Application of the survey -

Questionnaire design separate sections (economic data; finance div.,

interviews made in person; trained staff

innovation process; product/plant manager). include guidelines, definitions, present in more

than one language

Frequency 3 to 4 years, high cost

Publication results should be published and distributed widely. Increase further

participation and awareness.

Difficulties lack of appreciation of the importance of innovation. Managers are

secretive about finance. lack of adequate legislative base.

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Thinking ahead

The role of entrepreneurs and their attitudes towards innovation.

The intention to capture innovations driven by factors other than

market forces, and in particular innovations conducted by the
public sector.

The adaptation of methodology to measure innovation in the

primary sector (particularly in agriculture).

The need for better measuring minor or incremental changes,

including innovative applications of existing products or
processes, and the so-called 'backwards integration' of
technological capability.

The development of indicators reflecting sub-national (regional)

innovation systems.
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Issues arising in the follow-up to

the Annex

Innovation in informal sector?

Innovation from traditional knowledge?

Surveying innovation, rather than R&D, in

business (and informal) sector?

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Thank you!

http://www.uis.unesco.org
m.schaaper@uis.unesco.org

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