Is innovation in process technologies different from innovation in products?
what are the fundamental differences between these two?
different antecedents?
Yes there is a difference, if we take the more specific categorization of intermediate goods (the final goods at a certain stage towards completion), and final goods being the one intended for consumption by the end user. The degree of innovative knowledge would be more comprehensive, at the level of final goods compared to an intermediate good. The innovation cycle would have gone through relatively more rounds for the final goods as well. We observe this in mobile devices where newer models are introduced more frequently compared to the processors used to run them. In a sense the process aspects (proxied by processor upgrades) in the manufacturing and assembling side has changed little compared to the cosmetics related to the attributes of mobile devices (or some would point to frequent software upgrades).
in construction the client/user drives innovation in the product (building) to satisfy their own needs and priorities. As for process innovation, in most cases, its is driven through the internal organisational dynamics. The industry suffers when a gap is created between both due to the inertia and traditional mindsets that dominates industry. having said that there has been a strong movement where clients, including strong public clients, have pushed the industry to deliver process innovation through setting challenging targets for improvement.
I think it is different, but the differentiation is difficult to be caught in many sectors. For example bank innovations (service sector) are rather innovations in process technologies rather than product innovations. But still they are all called bank innovations. I am attaching an article with examples.
BR
Zornitsa
Article Innovative Business Bank products