Eight definitions of innovation

As part of a dissertation I wrote, I collected over 20 definitions of innovation from various books and journals (this took forever). These definitions tend to emphasize one or more of the following: the economic/market/value-creating aspect of innovations; the diffusion/adoption/demand-side of innovations; the implementation/push of innovations; and the role that attitude/energy plays in implementing innovations. Here are eight of them (I haven't included the page numbers here):

1. " . . . introducing new commodities or qualitatively better versions of existing ones; finding new markets; new methods of production and distribution; or new sources of production for existing commodities; or introducing new forms of economic organization." (Schumpeter, 1942)

2. "An innovation is an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption." (Rogers, 1995)

3. "The intersection of invention and insight, leading to the creation of economic value." (U.S. National Innovation Initiative, 2005)

4. "An innovation is anything new that is actually used (enters the market place) - whether major or minor." (von Hippel, 2005)

5. "The adoption of an internally generated or purchased device, system, policy, program, process, product, or service that is new to the adopting organization." (Damanpour, 1991)

6. "Creating new and better ways of doing things that your customers value and that create value for your shareholders." (George et al., 2005)

7. "A new way of doing things . . . that is commercialized." (Porter, 1990)

8. "The successful exploitation of new ideas." (U.K. Department of Trade and Industry, 2003)