[en] Innovation is the human capacity to give an idea the power to change the course of events and to push back the frontiers of the possible. If innovation is nowadays praised in the West and even beyond, it has long had a negative connotation in a semantic field limited to politics and religion. It is with the Enlightenment and the faith in the progress of the human condition that innovation, instrument of disruptive change, takes on a positive meaning. Its semantic field then widens to other domains such as science, arts or society before the word “innovation” becomes an essential concept in economics, the creative force that the economic system generates and that transforms it. This belated confidence in the beneficial effects of innovation may have reached its limits with the ecological crisis.
Disciplines :
Strategy & innovation
Author, co-author :
Artige, Lionel ; Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC Recherche > HEC Recherche: Economic analysis and policy