A taxonomy of innovations in Greece: implications for innovation policy and management

Innovation is widely recognized as a key factor in the economic development of nations. Innovation is also essential for the competitiveness of firms. Its importance is intensified by factors like the increased global competition, the decreased product lifecycles and the rapidly changing consumer demands. Policy and management of innovation are necessary, especially during the last years that the environment for innovation has changed. Innovation management can be used to develop innovation and it involves processes. Innovation processes can either be pushed or pulled through development. A pushed process is based on existing or newly invented technology, that the organization has access to, and tries to find profitable applications to use this technology.In this paper we present a taxonomy of innovations based on the newly invented technology in Greece. For this purpose we have focused on the firms that have produced this technology, studying different parameters, such as those of size, branch of activities, export shares. Our analysis shows that small firms are the main owners of the granted patents in Greece. So, firms that employ up to 50 employees account for the 57.83% of our sample, while the share of large firms (more than 500 employees) is 6.02%. Most of these firms are engaged in the economic activities of machine tools, metal and plastic products, chemical substances and wholesale. The Greek firms have a medium age and are characterized by different levels of exports, selling their products mainly to the countries of European Union, the Balkans and the Middle East. The taxonomy we present is based on the well known Pavitt taxonomy. This paper is the first effort to classify innovation this way and our results could be used in the development of both public policy and management, aiming at supporting and encouraging innovation in Greece.