Innovation and Innovativeness : Difference and Antecedent Relationship

Housing developers, just like firms from other industries, are facing competition and pressure to provide better quality products and services to improve speed in the market, organizational agility and innovation. Trade liberalization and rapid fall in communication costs, global communications, technological and scientific understanding, and the increasing knowledge and demand from clients are some of the reasons why innovation is even more urgent today. Innovation has been recognized as a prerequisite for better satisfaction of consumer needs, to stay ahead of the competitors, explore new markets, and is vital for firm survival and growth. This recognition has spurred numerous studies in many disciplines such as marketing, sociology, psychology, management and economics. The capacity of the firm to innovate has also brought about other research interests. Subsequently, there is diverse understanding of these two constructs by scholars in various fields, resulting in various definitions and inconsistent terminologies. The lack of consistent terminology has resulted in interchangeable uses of the constructs of innovation and innovativeness. This conceptual paper seeks to discuss the difference between innovation and innovativeness, and it also suggests the antecedent relationship between the two constructs