Analyzing Corporate Innovation using the Data Surface Mining Technique

Corporate innovation is the subject of several recent articles in the business press. FORTUNE and BusinessWeek have identified world-wide innovative companies, breakout companies, companies that focus on "the search for tomorrow" and companies to watch. Using a technique called "data surface mining" (DSM), the previously published data on these four topics were further analyzed to characterize the similarities and differences between the goods and service sectors; the results of these analyses are presented. In addition, the issues of technology management especially relevant to the service sector are presented. These issues are of critical importance in light of the fact that the service sector represents 80% (GDP and/or employment) of the United States economy and are of increasing importance in the global economy. It is also important to note that technology management in the service sector has not to date been given proportionate attention in the academic literature