N National Culture ▶ Entrepreneurship and National Culture (According to Hofstede’s Model) ▶ Microfirms National Innovation Systems (NIS) Bjo ¨rn Johnson and Bengt-A ˚ ke Lundvall Department of Business and Management, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark Synonyms National learning systems; National production systems; National science systems; Regional innovation systems; Sectoral innovation systems; Social innovation systems; Technological innovation systems; Triple helics; Varieties of capitalism Key Concept and Definitions of Terms Basic Ideas The notion of an “innovation system” builds on the observation that in the modern economy, innovations are not rare acts of individual crea- tivity, but ubiquitous and the outcome of interac- tion among individuals and organizations. It views innovation as processes over time rather than as isolated events, which can be uniquely dated. The notion of an innovation system usually also includes the idea of ongoing innovation as being rooted in different kinds of “learning rela- tionships” between users and producers, between people with different type of competences, between different departments in the firms, and so on. Learning is always, in some sense, inter- active and, hence, innovation is “systemic.” In markets where new products are intro- duced, users and producers need to communicate in other ways than by sending price signals to each other, in order for producers to discover new user needs and for users to get qualitative information about new products. Durable user- producer relationships are frequent and impor- tant. But they are only one of several examples of relationships, which affect innovation in a modern economy. Other examples are network relations, partnership relations, R&D collabora- tion, long-term relations between firms and finan- cial institutes, long-term relations between firms and universities, etc. Within organizations, the interaction between departments (production, R&D, sales, etc.) is fundamental for the outcome of innovation processes. Learning possibilities are not evenly distrib- uted over the economy but differ between sectors. Innovation is therefore deeply affected by the structural composition (especially the specializa- tion pattern) of the economy. Learning is also crucially influenced by the institutional frame- work of the economy. Institutions are here defined as the laws, regulations, norms, and E.G. Carayannis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-3858-8, # Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2013