The nature and variety of innovation

What is our current understanding of innovation and how many types of innovation do we know? Broadly, innovation landscapes are characterized by well-established categories, such as product, process, organizational, and marketing innovation, explained and theorized in terms of their links with technological innovation. However global challenges and changes in the structure of knowledge production, have led to diverse innovations, and recognizing and classifying such innovations is more complex, fragmented, and geographically dispersed than ever before. The progressive incorporation of hidden and non-technological innovations, together with the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution, is contributing to change our understanding of innovation and its measurement. This paper provides an overview of the most salient types of innovation in recent decades, enabling both researchers and practitioners to navigate the complex web of innovation definitions and typologies. Innovation studies face the challenge of finding a comprehensive and inclusive definition that captures the significance of innovation, and overcoming the terminological ‘Babel'ization and increased fragmentation of the field of innovation research. Keywords: Innovation, Nature of innovation, Innovation types, Knowledge society, Technological innovation, Social innovation