Introduction

Zusammenfassung

The European Union declared 2009 the “Year of Creativity and Innovation” with the objective of promoting innovation as a route to sustainable development. Apart from innovations that are developed in a social-political and ecological context, innovations by firms in the private sector play an especially important role in ensuring a sustainable development for an economy because innovations are essential ingredients of the business models of firms, which are major actors in an economy. As early as 1954, Drucker emphasized the importance of firm innovation: “Any business has two–only these two–basic functions: marketing and innovation”. In today’s substantially globalized world, innovations are increasingly important as ongoing economic, technological, and sociological changes dominate the business environment. The dynamic nature of business resulting from a continuous stream of innovations from all over the world leads to the rapid development of completely new markets and the sudden destruction of others.