Review of key performance indicators for measuring innovation process performance

Abstract

Performance indicators (PIs) are critical to the measurement of the innovation process. However, existing studies neglect PIs and dimensions relevant to companies in the current innovation landscape. This paper bridges this gap in prior research by reviewing and systematising PIs for the innovation process. It builds upon a systematic literature review to analyse scientific publications on innovation PIs published between 1983 and 2018. Thus, this study identifies the characteristics of relevant publications as well as systematises 259 PIs into nine company-specific and contextual dimensions and further categorisations. The analysis discusses the top-cited PIs and finds that more qualitative and leading PIs than quantitative exist in the literature. Furthermore, additional PIs are needed to address areas, such as leadership quality and tacit knowledge. This study may constitute an opportunity for academics to identify relevant measurement instruments and innovation managers to find an initial reference to support the selection of PIs.

Implementing and assessing a performance framework for the innovation measurement in a European manufacturer

“…According to Becheikh et al . (2006), Dziallas and Blind (2018), and more recently, Nappi and Kelly (2022a, b), two categories can be set up as internal and external aspects that affect the performance of the innovation process. The company-specific dimensions refer to those particular to a company's internal capability: innovation strategy; organisation and culture; knowledge management; portfolio management; project management; and team management.…”

“…Firstly, there is an underlying demand for relevant performance dimensions up to date with the company's practices (Nappi and Kelly, 2022a). This is driven by the need for dimensions such as knowledge management (Dziallas and Blind, 2018;Frishammar et al, 2019;Nappi and Kelly, 2021) as well as related to new trends like openness (Kazemargi et al, 2022), servitisation (Gaiardelli et al, 2021) and sustainability (Almeida and Wasim, 2023;Hristov et al, 2022) within innovation environment that is often overlooked in the past (Nappi and Kelly, 2022a).…”

“…Firstly, there is an underlying demand for relevant performance dimensions up to date with the company's practices (Nappi and Kelly, 2022a). This is driven by the need for dimensions such as knowledge management (Dziallas and Blind, 2018;Frishammar et al, 2019;Nappi and Kelly, 2021) as well as related to new trends like openness (Kazemargi et al, 2022), servitisation (Gaiardelli et al, 2021) and sustainability (Almeida and Wasim, 2023;Hristov et al, 2022) within innovation environment that is often overlooked in the past (Nappi and Kelly, 2022a). Secondly, several researchers, Frishammar et al (2019), Lakiza and Deschamps (2019) and Nappi and Kelly (2022b), acknowledge that PFs, besides providing pertinent dimensions, also need to be actionable and go beyond measuring performance to support the definition of improvement actions after the measurements.…”

“…Firstly, there is an underlying demand for relevant performance dimensions up to date with the company's practices (Nappi and Kelly, 2022a). This is driven by the need for dimensions such as knowledge management (Dziallas and Blind, 2018; Frishammar et al.…”

“…, 2021) and sustainability (Almeida and Wasim, 2023; Hristov et al. , 2022) within innovation environment that is often overlooked in the past (Nappi and Kelly, 2022a). Secondly, several researchers, Frishammar et al.…”