Innovation is key to firms' competitive advantage, performance, and growth. In this paper we try to briefly link the concepts of Innovation and Entrepreneurship with the emergence of a new industrial revolution that has been labeled as "Industry 4.0", showing that as in the past a set of innovation are the main drivers for the change of the technical and social paradigm. We summarize a number of concepts to show that the key drivers of competitiveness are Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
InnovationIt is important to distinguish innovation from invention. Even though related, these concepts are distinct and entail different factors, consequences and challenges. Invention is defined by Schumpeter [12], as an idea, a sketch or a model, for a new or improved product, process or system, which may or may not be patented but which is not yet standardized in the marketplace. It means to generate an idea, a concept, or a solution where there is nothing, to discover something new. Innovation, on its hand, means the adoption of an idea, behavior or invention pertaining to a product, service, device, system, policy or program that is new to the firm [13]. This involves converting the idea, sketch or model invented into a product, service, process or even business that generates value or for which customers are willing to pay for. According to Schumpeter, this conversion process is fundamental to the process of economic development, as something that allows to boost the cycles of growth [12]. Recent studies have sought to establish a conceptual map of innovation in order to define and cover the different forms of understanding and studying the phenomenon.