Abstract
Purpose - Data for innovation management and policy must be valid, reliable, relevant and actionable. The paper examines the question: What shall we measure? and offers preliminary answers.Design/methodology/approach - The paper examines trends within finance, environment, and institutions and society, all with regard to innovation and technology. It examines how these trends interact with each other and with measurement of innovation and socio-technical change.Findings - In the future, measurement for innovation policy must occur in markedly different ways – and on quite different scales – than is currently the practice. The paper concludes with a future-oriented list of items to be measured, with preliminary guidelines on how to organize to measure them. Research limitations/implications - Foresight researchers must put new emphasis on measurement.Practical implications - Local and national statistical agencies will have to measure new indicators, and organize differently in order to measure them.Originality/value - This concept paper goes beyond other indexes and proposals to identify new phenomena that must be measured. In contrast to other works which are oriented to measurement-push (toward policy), the present paper makes bold assertions about the trends needing to be addressed by policy, then proposes measurement based on policy-pull. It argues against premature worldwide statistical standards, and for Popperian "multiple engineering experiments."
Purpose - Data for innovation management and policy must be valid, reliable, relevant and actionable. The paper examines the question: What shall we measure? and offers preliminary answers.Design/methodology/approach - The paper examines trends within finance, environment, and institutions and society, all with regard to innovation and technology. It examines how these trends interact with each other and with measurement of innovation and socio-technical change.Findings - In the future, measurement for innovation policy must occur in markedly different ways – and on quite different scales – than is currently the practice. The paper concludes with a future-oriented list of items to be measured, with preliminary guidelines on how to organize to measure them. Research limitations/implications - Foresight researchers must put new emphasis on measurement.Practical implications - Local and national statistical agencies will have to measure new indicators, and organize differently in order to measure them.Originality/value - This concept paper goes beyond other indexes and proposals to identify new phenomena that must be measured. In contrast to other works which are oriented to measurement-push (toward policy), the present paper makes bold assertions about the trends needing to be addressed by policy, then proposes measurement based on policy-pull. It argues against premature worldwide statistical standards, and for Popperian "multiple engineering experiments."
