Christina White

UNDERSTANDING INNOVATION: A STUDY OF PERSPECTIVES AND PERCEPTIONS IN ENGINEERING

Well developed innovation processes are essential components for continued success of product and systems design throughout industry. Such processes build upon research advancements in innovation techniques and methods. To create such techniques and methods, studies are needed to examine the current state-of-the-art, as well as the corresponding teaching of such innovation processes in higher education. This paper contributes to this effort by studying a specific group of innovation researchers, teachers, and practitioners. The study was created to probe this group of leaders in the engineering design domain using technical, demographic, and short answer questions. Various analysis methods are used to obtain a fundamental view of the answers to these questions with respect to the demographics of the participant group. Two deductive analysis methods are used, in addition to an inductive approach, consisting of a correlation analysis to compare responses to questions and understand trends across the participants. Results from the analyses emphasize the current perceptions of innovation by the participants and opportunities to refine research in improving innovation practices.Copyright