Exploring Skills and Competencies of Innovation: the Case for a Qualitative Methodology

Abstract

Abstract-This paper highlights a qualitative methodology to detect the most relevant behaviours and skills to be included in assessment innovation competency of higher education students. Innovation is a complex process that comprises several competencies, such as, perception of opportunities, ideas generation and evaluation, action plans, cooperation and risk. It is considered one of the most competitive advantage in determining the success or failure of a company in the global market. We used the INCODE-ICB-v6 questionnaire as the measurement instrument of innovation which measures the innovation construct with a series of 25 items, grouped into three categories: individual, teamwork and network. The items on our version of the questionnaire INCODE-ICB-v6 are in a different order with respect to the original questionnaire. We applied a qualitative explorative analysis via a distance-based affinity diagram, where the students can group the proposed items of the questionnaire. Our affinity diagramming process consists of two stages. First, the interviewed group the items in the category they think is best. Then, we represent items in a perceptual map using a non-metric multidimensional scaling (MDS). MDS analyses were carried out with two databases, one for four categories model and second for up to ten categories model. The results of multidimensional scaling confirm the structure of these three components in both models, for four and up to ten categories.

Revisión del concepto de comportamiento innovador y comportamiento innovador en el trabajo

“…A partir de esto, se han utilizado diferentes instrumentos y modelos teóricos para medir diversos constructos asociados con la innovación en personas universitarias, colaboradoras y gerentes de varias organizaciones en países europeos y latinoamericanos (Andreu-Andrés et al, 2017;Aznar-Mas et al, 2016;Madrigal-Torres, 2019;Madrigal-Torres et al, 2017;Marí-Benlloch et al, 2017a, 2017bMartínez-Gómez, et al, 2016;Pérez-Castañeda et al, 2018;Pérez-Rodríguez, 2017;Woods et al, 2017); no obstante, diferentes autores evidencian que no se identifica un criterio unificado sobre la definición del constructo de comportamiento innovador, el cual se confunde con los términos de habilidad innovadora, comportamiento innovador en el trabajo, habilidad innovadora en el trabajo, competencia innovadora y creatividad (Bos-Nehles et al, 2016;Briganti & Samson, 2019;Hon & Lui, 2016;Li & Hsu, 2016;Lukes & Stephan, 2017;Pérez-Peñalver et al, 2018).…”