BEHAVIORAL INDICATORS OF INNOVATION COMPETENCE

The competence for innovation that an individual possesses or potentially can possess is a quality that all companies wish to secure among certain segments of their employees. By innovation we understand the introduction of something radically new or the improvement of something that already exists, although it may transcend invention or enhancement of a product, service, process or method.
This paper will report on the progress of the refinement of the barometer developed for the Innovation Competencies Development Project (INCODE) for its adaptation to the ongoing Framework for Innovation Competencies Development and Assessment (FINCODA). INCODE produced a tool to assess innovation competence development in a university setting, whereas the ongoing project FINCODA aims to adapt the barometer to the needs of companies.
The results of the research on the INCODE barometer, of the needs analysis carried out in FINCODA’s nine partner companies and of the systematic review of the literature on behavioral indicators of innovation competence have yielded a new model that contains five dimensions of the innovation cluster, at the core of which are creativity and critical thinking. The three remaining dimensions include initiative, team work and networking, which in our model we group together as capacities for innovation management.