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Innovation is a concept that has been with us since Antiquity. Back then it meant 'introducing political change contrary to established customs and laws' Now, a definition often used is the one given by Schumpeter; "carrying out of new combinations” that include “the introduction of new goods, ... new methods of production, ... the opening of new markets, ... the conquest of new sources of supply ... and the carrying out of a new organization of any industry” However, many scholars and governmental organizations has given their own definition of the concept. Some common element in the different definitions is a focus on newness, improvement and spread.

History
The word "innovation" once had and quite different meaning. The first full length discussion about innovation is the account by the Greek philosopher and historian Xenophon (430-355 BCE). He viewed the concept to be multifaceted  and connected it to political action. The word for innovation that he uses is 'Kainotomia' (innovation) and before him it had been used in two plays by Aristophanes. Plato discussed innovation in his book Laws and was not very found of the concept. He was skeptical to it in both culture (dancing and art) and education (he did not believe in introducing new games and toys to the kids). Aristotle did no like organizational innovations as he believed that "'All possible forms of organization have now been discovered. If another form of organization was really good it would have been discovered already (Politics II as cited by Godin 2015)"Before the 4th century in Rome, the words novitas and res nova / nova resmeant meant innovation as a substantive and was used with either negative or positive judgment on the innovator. This concept meant renewing and this meaning was incorporated into the new word innovo in the centuries that followed. It was used in the Vulgate bible in spiritual as well as political contexts and meant renewal. It was also used in poetry and then mainly had spiritual connotations but was also connected to political, material and cultural aspects.

In Machiavelli's The Prince (1513), Innovation is described in a political setting. It is portrayed as a strategy a Prince may employ in order to cope with a constantly changing world as well as the corruption within it. Here innovation is described as introducing change in government (new laws and institutions) in Machiavelli's later book The Discourses (1528) innovation is described as imitation, as a return to the original that has been corrupted by people and by time. Thus for Machiavelli Innovation came with positive connotations. This is however an exception in the description of innovation from the 16th century and onward. No innovator from the renaissance until the late 19th century ever thought of applying the word innovator upon themselves, it was a word used to attack enemies

From the 1400s through the 1600s, prior to early European settlement of the Americas from 1492, the concept of "innovation" was pejorative - the term was an early-modern synonym for "rebellion", "revolt" and "heresy". It was often associated with religion. Kings and queens issued declarations against it and if you were very unlucky as the puritan Henry Burton, your ears could be chopped off if you were accused of innovating. In the 1800 it was the social reformers turn to be accused of innovating. People promoting capitalism saw Socialism as an innovation and spent a lot of energy working against it. For instance Goldwin Smith saw  the spread of social innovations as an attack on money and banks. These social innovations were socialism, communism, nationalization, cooperative associations. Thus contrary to what many people believe, social innovation appeared much earlier than technological innovation

In the 1900s the concept Innovation did not become popular until after the second world war. This is the point in time when people started to talk about technological product innovation and tie it to the idea of economic growth and competitive advantage.

Definitions
There are countless definitions of innovation.

Everett Rogers, who is a very influential scholar in the study of the diffusion of innovation define it as follows:

"An idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption"

Baregheh and colleges found around 60 definitions in different scientific papers. Based on these they attempted to define a multidisciplinary definition and arrived at the following definition: "Innovation is the multi-stage process whereby organizations transform ideas into new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace" Furthermore, a

2014 survey of literature on innovation found over 40 definitions. In an industrial survey of how the software industry defined innovation, the following definition given by Crossan and Apaydin was considered to be the most complete, which builds on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) manual's definition:"Innovation is production or adoption, assimilation, and exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of production; and the establishment of new management systems. It is both a process and an outcome."According to Kanter, innovation includes original invention and creative use and defines innovation as a generation, admission and realization of new ideas, products, services and processes.

Two main dimensions of innovation were degree of novelty (patent) (i.e. whether an innovation is new to the firm, new to the market, new to the industry, or new to the world) and kind of innovation (i.e. whether it is processor product-service system innovation). In recent organizational scholarship, researchers of workplaces have also distinguished innovation to be separate from creativity, by providing an updated definition of these two related but distinct constructs:"Workplace creativity concerns the cognitive and behavioral processes applied when attempting to generate novel ideas. Workplace innovation concerns the processes applied when attempting to implement new ideas. Specifically, innovation involves some combination of problem/opportunity identification, the introduction, adoption or modification of new ideas germane to organizational needs, the promotion of these ideas, and the practical implementation of these ideas."Peter Drucker wrote:"Innovation is the specific function of entrepreneurship, whether in an existing business, a public service institution, or a new venture started by a lone individual in the family kitchen. It is the means by which the entrepreneur either creates new wealth-producing resources or endows existing resources with enhanced potential for creating wealth."

Types

Another frameworks that is common in Innovation management courses is suggested by Henderson and Clark. They divide Innovation into four types;

"'establishes a new dominant design and, hence, a new set of core design concepts embodied in components that are linked together in a new architecture.' (p.11)" "'refines and extends an established design. Improvement occurs in individual components, but the underlying core design concepts, and the links between them, remain the same.' (p.11)" "'innovation that changes only the relationships between them [the core design concepts]' (p.12)" "'innovation that changes only the core design concepts of a technology' (p.12)"
 * Radical innovation,
 * Incremental innovation:
 * Architectural innovation
 * Modular Innovation

Furthermore, the classical definition of innovation being limited to the primary goal of generating profit for a firm has led other to define other types of innovation such as:


 * Social Innovation
 * Responsible innovation
 * Green Innovaiton
 * Eco Innovation