A Model of Global Network Environment for Innovation

Karol I. Pelc

Paper presented at the 2012 Global Business and International Management Conference,  Orlando, FL,  January 15-17. Published in GBIM Proceedings, ISSN 2155 - 1219, p. 118 - 129.

Abstract

Global innovation networks emerged recently and became a trademark of the 21^st century’s international management of innovation and technology. They are developing due to continuously increasing complexity of technology and increasing costs of innovation projects. Collaboration became effective thanks to the improving information and communication technology allowing easy and simultaneous access to databases in globally distributed systems. The evolution of global markets with a high degree of openness provided incentives for innovation initiatives reaching across national borders. Scientific, technological and economic networks of collaboration involve companies, institutions and individuals. In many instances they became necessary for solving important problems and for jointly developing risky and/or high cost innovation projects. The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual model of global network environment for innovation. The model represents a constellation of interlinked global networks. The paper also presents a new taxonomy of global innovation networks and a brief description of typical structures of those networks. The global aspects of innovation networks are emphasized within four basic spheres of environment: economic, managerial, social, and cultural. The Schumpeterian concept of innovation is applied in analysis of basic features of collaborative innovation. The impact of global business environment on innovation network configurations is assessed according to criteria corresponding to the four basic spheres of that environment.