Innovation management enables organizations to focus on competitiveness and successful performance. Standardization can enhance organizational capabilities in order to be aligned with national and international best practices as well as to develop internal competences, routines and processes that can leverage an innovation journey towards excellence. At national and international levels, evidence demonstrates the importance of standardization, as a body of knowledge, to contribute to business innovation and to increase competitiveness and realization of value.

Innovation is recognised as a difficult domain to assess and to measure. Innovation indicators are necessary to characterise innovation dynamics and to assess the effects of public policies supporting innovation or, from a micro perspective, return on investment, including the creation of conditions conducive to RD&I activities. Moreover, it is also important to observe the role of the different actors, whether companies, the main drivers of innovation, or other entities in the innovation system. At country level, research has highlighted the importance of analysing innovation performance. Also, several studies have focused approaches developed by international organisations, in particular the European Commission. Part I of this chapter relates to a macro level perspective applied to innovation measurement. Companies are eager to develop and apply methodologies contributing to capture innovation results. A problem in innovation management is how to do it. A framework model was proposed and applied, considering three levels of evaluation of innovation activities and projects, following a Return on Investment (ROI) approach. Part II of this chapter aims to analyse how companies are managing innovation, which practices have been implemented and what framework could be designed to promote their capabilities to evaluate and measure innovation. It will contribute to the understanding of innovation measurement at firm level and to a more systematic approach for innovation management.

Innovation is managed through the development of processes and routines, considered as critical for business success and value creation. The identification of relevant routines as well as the understanding of which factors affect business innovation is the main objective of this research, based on a survey applied in Portuguese companies and their experience shared in best practices guides. Conclusions highlighted 10 key innovation routines, reinforcing the idea that innovation must be supported through a systematic and sustained management process.Results also indicate that SMEs face greater difficulties in benefiting from the potential of innovation practices and collaboration may present opportunities to overcome their limited resources. Therefore, regardless of size, business activity, science and technology intensity or other factors influencing firms dynamic capabilities, innovation should be considered as a management imperative as it can influence not only the present but also the future of business success.

In an increasingly digitized world and after the disruption of the covid-19 pandemic, the internet and social networks are becoming the central backbone of interactions between individuals, organizations, and governments worldwide in general and defending the democratic values in Ukraine in particular. The influence capacity of social networks on creativity and innovation has grown in recent years and has been an objective of the study. This paper analyses the interaction between innovation and social networks from a balanced assessment, considering opportunities and risks. The interaction between social networks and innovation could redesign the value creation process. The proliferation of social media platforms coincides with the expansion of the open innovation paradigm and has demonstrated its efficiency in facilitating solutions in different fields such as science, statistics, engineering, production and the generation of social policies. On the other hand, risks have to be analyzed and mitigated. The social networks and search engines could have become a proxy for organizing and accessing information and knowledge on a large scale; however, evidence points out how the fake data and concentration could suffocate innovation. The research develops a theoretical framework to analyze how the organizational structure of social networks could influence the knowledge absorption capability and innovation; what is the influence of the social networks on creativity and innovation; and their role as drivers to create the social value. The results of the research could be practically valuable for many stakeholders: Chief Innovation Officers and Communication Managers, Teams responsible for Stakeholders Engagement and Open Innovation programmes, Policy Makers, and the Scientific Community interested in developing empirical research on the topic, as well as citizens to understand their role as change-makers contributing to developing Innovation and Creativity.

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