M.J. Flikkema

Identifying Neo-Schumpeterian Innovation in Service Firms: A Conceptual Essay with a Novel Classification

The identification of innovation in service firms is problematic since there is no consensus of opinion on its conceptualization. Recent papers suggest both distinctive features of innovation in services and distinctive types of service innovation. This article reviews and evaluates these findings from a Schumpeterian perspective. The evaluation justifies conceptualizing service innovation as a specific case of service development with a reference to Schumpeter, but not as strict as proposed by Drejer (2004) [Drejer, I. (2004) Identifying Innovation in Surveys of Services: A Schumpeterian Perspective. Research Policy, 33, 551–562]. Despite the simultaneity of production and consumption in services, this article claims that the distinction between product innovation and process innovation should be preferred to other ways of classifying innovation in service firms. Finally, changes in the denomination of services are advanced as a key to the identification of development and innovation in service firms.

Are trademark counts a valid indicator of innovation? results of an in-depth study of new Benelux trademarks filed by SMEs

This paper extends the emerging literature on the value of trademarks for innovation studies and policy-making with the first empirical study at the trademark level. It gives a view on how companies use trademarks and interpret trademark activities. A sample of 660 new Benelux trademarks registered by small- and medium-sized enterprises reveals that 60 per cent of recently registered Benelux trademarks refer to innovation activity, predominantly to product or service innovation. The reference to innovation co-varies with various applicant and trademark characteristics unknown from previous studies. Finally, the sample reveals that most of the trademarks used to signal innovative offers are filed close to its market introduction without combining them with other intellectual property rights. This holds especially for trademarks related to service innovation.

Exploiting Trademark Records and Matched Data for Innovation Research.

The use of trademark data in innovation studies is in its infancy. Patent statistics and R&D expenses are still preferred as innovation indicators, while the results of the first empirical studies into trademarks are promising. However, since there is no one-to-one relationship between new trademarks and innovation, the use of raw trademark counts has important drawbacks, in particular in firm-level studies. Therefore, in this paper we exploit data recorded in trademark databases and matched data collected with the TIS survey to study the reference of novel Benelux and Community trademarks to product and service innovation. We also take the level of newness of the innovations into account. Overall we conclude that the value of trademark data for studying innovation increases when they are combined with data from other sources. This is particularly true when trademarks are used to study radical versus incremental innovation.