Towards an ontology of innovation models - A conceptual framework

Management literature is renowned for producing concepts and models but few of these are ever translated into software-based tools - even though they could offer value to managers. Innovation models are theoretical constructions that attempt to abstract from reality a set of interesting features that are useful in describing, explaining, and predicting the reality of the innovation processes in organisations. But it is troubling to find that even the latest models emanating from the academic discourse fall well short of organisational reality. The objective of this paper is to recast the concept of the innovation model but this time from a strong theoretical base. We, therefore, start by presenting a conceptual framework for the innovation processes in organizations. From this we set out to develop an ontology that defines the words and sentences that can be used to represent innovation models. So we do not seek to present yet another model of innovation but instead we work towards a conceptually derived ontology of innovation models that can provide a foundation for future software-based tools. We suggest that computer-aided innovation modelling is an interesting area of research deserving of future attention.