Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
ORGANISATIONAL LITERATUR INNOVATION IN HUNGARY<br />
On the contrary, there is a steady tendency of<br />
growth in the service sector in terms of both<br />
its economic performance and employment<br />
capacity. In other words, services in general<br />
and especially business services represent a<br />
potential sustainable development path in the<br />
Hungarian economic modernisation.<br />
2. INNOVATION IN SERVICES<br />
There is a wide consensus in both the academic<br />
and professional communities that innovation<br />
is at the hearth of economic development and<br />
wealth. The literature dealing with the issues of<br />
innovation makes a distinction of two types of<br />
innovation. The first is often labelled the linear<br />
model of innovation. This model describes<br />
innovation as a linear chain of discrete R&D<br />
activities in which each development stage<br />
is separated from the others. Innovation<br />
is driven by scientific research or direct<br />
market demands. In this model, of particular<br />
importance is codified knowledge, which<br />
originates in scientific research and flows<br />
in one direction. Critiques of this approach<br />
often claim that a linear form of innovation<br />
represents the exception rather than the rule in<br />
practice (Schienstock & Hamalainen 2001).<br />
The second approach is the recursive model<br />
of innovation, which describes innovation<br />
as a novel combination of existing<br />
knowledge. In this model, innovation<br />
Seite page 108<br />
is driven by market needs and new<br />
knowledge is an unintended result<br />
of the complex interdependent<br />
relationship between the various actors.<br />
Multiple feedback mechanisms are important<br />
here, as is the intensive cooperation between<br />
different actors (firms, clients, suppliers,<br />
scientific institutions), as well (Schienstock &<br />
Hamalainen 2001). In this regard, innovation<br />
is open and happens dominantly in complex<br />
networks rather than in individual firms, while<br />
the institutional environment plays a crucial<br />
facilitating role.<br />
In the Hungarian discourse on innovation, the<br />
linear model plays a dominant role, although<br />
the recursive model better suits to the real<br />
characteristics of the innovation process,<br />
especially in the case of service innovation. The<br />
former model places emphasis on technology<br />
largely embodied in machinery, and equipment<br />
as well as the processes involved in the<br />
development and commercial introduction<br />
of new, technologically advanced goods. In<br />
addition, this model neglects such “soft”<br />
elements of innovation such as cooperation,<br />
collective knowledge development and sharing,<br />
trust relations, etc.<br />
According to Salter and Tether (2006:2),<br />
“services were long thought to be laggards with<br />
regard to innovation – they were assumed to be<br />
uninteresting adopters of existing technologies<br />
rather than producers of new technology.” 3<br />
Since the beginning of the 1980s, however,<br />
there has been a shift in this rather one-sided<br />
approach of service innovation. The authors<br />
identified the following four generations of<br />
innovation research in services.<br />
The period of neglecting service innovations<br />
can be characterised by narrow perception<br />
of innovation primarily focusing on the<br />
creation of new technologies, while diffusion<br />
and adaptation of new technologies was<br />
seen as either unproblematic or of secondary