Entrepreneurability: Innovation Labs as Engines of Innovation Capacity Development

In the current political-economic scenario, creativity and innovation are increasingly considered the key to organizations’ survival. Innovation is a high-risk process that hides various uncertainty factors and several barriers. The key challenge is how to innovate successfully and cope with the pace of innovation, rather than deciding if it is worth innovating or not. We use the notion of entrepreneurability to refer to organizations and individuals’ ability to develop an innovation capacity. In particular, this chapter aims to investigate the role of Innovation Laboratories (Innovation Labs) as an engine of entrepreneurability, e.g., of innovation capacity development. The chapter introduces an understanding of what an Innovation Lab is. It acknowledges that, in recent years, many organizations are experimenting with different forms of labs, centers of competence, and more generally initiatives to boost innovation capacity. Defining the notion of Innovation Lab aims to provide managers with a conceptual framework to understand, from a descriptive and a prescriptive viewpoint, the setup of organizational units and initiatives for innovation capacity development.