Goal of the book

An invention becomes an innovation once it is successfully placed in the market. In the process from idea to innovation three main protagonists (stake holders) are involved: the inventor, the decision maker, and the enterprise as an abstract entity. To successfully and sustainably push forward innovation, the three protagonists have to understand each other.

There is a lot of literature on innovation, its management and its organizational foundations. However, this literature always examines innovation from the enterprise’s viewpoint and debate the question, what an enterprise needs to do, to promote innovations.

The inventor and also the decision maker are usually not or only marginally considered. What – very concrete – has an inventor next to his invention to provide to get the decision maker’s attention. And what – very concrete – needs a decision maker to allocate the scarce resources for which he signs responsible for the enterprise to the most promising inventions and ideas.

The goal of this book is to determine the different requirements these protagonists have to fulfill and – in the sense of a handbook – provide assistance how and in what way the protagonists communicate with each other and which information in the different innovation phases can be expected and are needed, respectively. The perspectives of inventor, decision maker and enterprise are integrated in a business model which allows a common “language” and communication platform for the emerging tension field. This helps to ask and to answer the right questions.

Target Groups

The book addresses inventors and decision makers in enterprises:

• Inventors typically are scientists, technicians, and engineers without business education
• Decision makers are responsible for the enterprise’s resources and have to allocate them optimally to the tasks at hand
• Enterprises which intend to implement a strategic and powerful innovation process with decision criteria corresponding to the persons involved