Measuring innovation in tourism from the Schumpeterian and the dynamic-capabilities perspectives

This paper offers a diagnosis of the "state of the issue" regarding the measurement of innovation in the tourism industry at the company level, and some recommendations for overcoming identified problems. The study addresses two central issues: how existing secondary databases of innovative activity define the boundaries of the tourism industry, and the degree to which these databases reflect the particular characteristics of this economic activity. It is concluded that these analyses present serious biases and anomalies hindering the understanding of the situation at the micro level and complicating the issue of international comparability, and the analyses do not capture the internal heterogeneity of innovative behavior of tourism companies from specific, intra-sectoral activities. The problems concern inappropriate indicators and the need for survey methods to complement the development of innovation scoreboards in secondary sources. The study concludes by detailing a set of proposals that should be considered in the context of a scoreboard to provide a comprehensive view of a tourism firm's technological and organizational innovations, as well as its innovative capabilities, combining Schumpeterian theory and the dynamic-capabilities-based approach, and also making cross-national comparisons feasible. Published by Elsevier Ltd.