Learning from the History of Innovation

Abstract

This letter describes an approach to learn from the history of innovation by studying how organizational and regional innovation cultures developed over time, using a research-based framework of nine innovation dilemmas. The purpose of this letter is to contribute to the debate on how we can learn from the history of innovation in such a way that an understanding of the past supports innovators, decision makers and policy makers to improve future innovation performance. This letter also serves as an invitation to the community to engage in the discussion on how looking back at the history of innovation can help prepare for the future.