Dejan Križaj, University of Primorska

HOW TO CITE:

Križaj, D. (2017). Innovation newness. In AIRTH Encyclopedia of Innovation in Tourism and Hospitality. Retrieved: <insert-date>, from http://www.airth.global

Introduction

Following Daft’s dual-core general innovation model[1] and Hall&Williams’ tourism innovation approach[2], basic distinguishing innovation characteristics can be formed in two groups: content and appearance.

“Content” characteristics include: product, process, organizational, marketing and form types.  Characteristics like incremental or radical degree of novelty and innovation’s impact range define its “appearance”[3] [4] [5] [6] [7].  While innovation “content” can be described through different means of innovation categorization [8] [9] [10] [11] [12], innovation “appearance” has at least two perspectives. The first includes questions regarding how innovation appeared inside the firm’s system boundaries; i.e., how the innovation was perceived internally in the firm and what improved because of the adoption of the innovation[13]. The second perspective looks outside the firm’s system boundaries: how was the innovation perceived by customers, suppliers, markets and competitors and what was improved because of that [14] [15].

One promising fragmental way of dealing with the innovation appearance factors is focusing on innovations’ newness characteristics.

Relevance for innovation

Newness factors alone are not enough to make the innovation a successful one but when taken into account together with other “content” and “appearance” innovation categories inside the firm’s strategic plan they can contribute to greater competitiveness[16]. Appropriate knowledge about actual technological change and existent competition ecosystems can improve managers’ strategic decisions and engagements for which state-of-the-art insights into the newest trends are crucial.

Throughout innovation research history novelty and newness have been in the focus of innovation definitions. While theorizing about innovation’s newness characteristics Johannessen et al.[17] introduce three important questions: 1.) what is new, 2.) how new it is and 3.) to whom it is new. They claim that only after these questions are thoroughly answered and these answers declared at the beginning of each study can one compare different results and talk about a systematic approach to the plethora of possible innovation adopters and answers to what is new for them and how new it is in broader terms.

When focusing on its newness characteristics, innovation can be described as the intermediate stage on the continuum between invention and adoption[18]. Invention represents major developments in science or technology without already known implications. Adoption characterizes a firm’s first introduction of existing, already known solutions.

Relevance for tourism

Tourism firms operate in a highly interdependent business environment and their offer in most cases depends on several non-tourism firms and industries, including those in food, beverage, agriculture, architecture, culture, entertainment, health care, finance, information technology, education, safety, etc. Several authors assert that a supplier-driven process is one of the basic tourism phenomenon characteristic whereby firms mostly innovate with purchased products and services from their suppliers[19] [20] [21] [22]. Logically, there is not much “new to the world” products found in tourism where adoptions on the invention-adoption continuum are the more preferred type of innovation activity[23] and as such are generally not science-based[24].

Measurement approach

OECD Oslo Manual approach

Each invention starts its “first in the world” appearance somewhere on the globe. After that it is gradually diffused through different social systems at different diffusion rates[25] and adapted to local needs and environments in different ways. Although such diffused tourism adoptions are not generally perceived as innovations any more they can play a substantial role in the further development of the destinations where faster or slower diffusion of “already world known” innovations can still help to differentiate between otherwise not so different tourism destinations[26]. This “diffusion logic” of the invention-innovation-adoption continuum is manifested in the European Community innovation surveys (CIS). The data are collected every two years and its regularly updated methodology originates from the Oslo Manual[27], which in general does not cover tourism as a standard industry classification but still offers applicable research guidelines. The Oslo Manual’s defined minimum requirement for an innovation is that it must be new or significantly improved in regards to the firm. Aside from new products, processes, etc., that firms are the first to develop, innovations can also be adopted from other firms/organizations and are still treated as innovations for the firm. Firms are identified as innovative if they have introduced an innovation during the period of observation. So, adoption in Volo’s invention-adoption continuum is already classified as innovation in the OECD’s terms.

Krizaj et al.[28] and Zach et al. [29] approach

The authors of the Oslo Manual state that such broad definition of an innovative company may not be appropriate for all policy/research needs and permit more narrow research definitions. If we focus on the minimum requirement of the Oslo Handbook, innovation must be new or significant improvement at least at the company level. In addition to novelties at least at the company level, of course, certain innovation can be perceived as new even broader – at the level of: regions, countries, the union (EU, USA, etc.), the continent … At the opposite level, we can speak of a global level of innovation. Innovation occurs for the first time anywhere in the whole world (for example, the first appearance of a low-cost carrier business model). Thus, a multitude of all innovations introduced in a particular company at a given time can be new at different geographical levels, as shown in Table 1. Ci companies introduce diversified innovations Ii, j, which are new with different levels of innovation: among all the innovations it represents C4, there is also one – I4,5 – which is new on a global scale. By contrast, C3 only introduced innovation, a new one at the company level (I3.1 and I3.2).

 

Legend: Ci : company (i = 1 … N), Ii,j : innovations introduced in Ci (j = 1 … M)

Companies can be observed only in certain segments of tourism, such as the accommodation sector or only the cycling city tour operators and, if necessary, continue to be divided according to the chosen criteria: size, age, type … The company can introduce a novelty that is not new in comparison to all the industries in the region (e.g. internet telephony for consumers). However, this innovation can be the first (and thus more competitive) in the home region among small travel agencies (the first such agency that has introduced such a communication channel between businesses and consumers). Different sets of novelties give different innovation “appearances” (see introduction and [30] [31]).