Science Research Management ›› 2011, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (12): 143-150,156.

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Innovation studies: An emerging discipline driving economic development andimproving social welfare in the 21st century

Zhang Zhihe1,2, Zhou Guohua3, Hu Rui3, Xie Zhongquan4   

  1. 1. School of International Business, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062, China;
    2. Research Center for Technological Innovation, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China;
    3. School of Economics and Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China;
    4. Graduate School of Innovation Management, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 1528550, Japan
  • Received:2011-09-19 Revised:2011-11-28 Online:2011-12-27 Published:2011-12-23

Abstract: After 100 years' sustainable development, innovation studies have become a specific research field based on many disciplines, such as economics, management, and philosophy. Motivated by the trend of international innovation studies and the domestic pressing need of innovation practices, the historical evolutionary process of innovation studies is systematically reviewed and a systematic discipline structure of innovation studies with multi-disciplinary perspectives is constructed. It is argued that innovation studies as an emerging field is a logically inter-connected multi-disciplinary system comprising of dominant disciplines, such as economics of innovation, innovation management, and innovation philosophy, basic disciplines, such as economics, management, and philosophy, and supporting disciplines, such as sociology, geography, history, engineering, statistics, systematology, biology, psychology, and art.

Key words: innovation, economics of innovation, innovation management, innovation philosophy

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