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Innovation is considered to be a key factor to increase the profitability of industrial businesses, a necessary part of rationalisation of production since Adam Smith.[1] Due to this widely accepted relation, technological innovation is regarded as a core element of competitive advantage and in consequence of business strategy.[2] Furthermore, innovation is one of the main drivers of the chemical industry and will even gain importance with current decarbonization efforts.[3] Innovation can be an answer to increasing competitiveness as well as saturated markets. In consequence, today many companies try to frame expressions of its corporate identity, produce favourable images in the minds of stakeholders, and build and sustain corporate reputation as an innovator.[4]

i4c4 is an information platform dealing with current research on trends and innovation in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and medical device industry. The basis for all research are current technological and business developments and their resulting implications.

Footnotes

  1. Leijonhufvud, A. (1986): Capitalism and the Factory System, in R. N. Langlois (Ed.), Economic as a Process: Essays in the New Institutional Economics (pp. 203–224), Cambridge University Press.
    Smith, A. (1776): An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1st ed., Vol. 1), Strahan.
  2. Schumpeter, J. A. (1927): The Explanation of the Business Cycle, Economia, 21, 286–311.
  3. Riedel, N. H., and Špaček, M. (2022): Challenges of Renewable Energy Sourcing in the Process Industries: The Example of the German Chemical Industry, Sustainability, 14(20), Article 20.
  4. Courtright, J. L., and Smudde, P. M. (2009): Leveraging Organizational Innovation for Strategic Reputation Management, Corporate Reputation Review, 12(3), 245–269.