Innovation Biome and Its Comparison to Other Existing Metaphors: A Survey Approach

The necessity to comprehend the phenomenon of innovation and its complexities, has made researchers to make use of different metaphors such as system, ecosystem, factory, maze, cluster, chain, network, etc. to understand this phenomenon. Recently, biome as a new metaphor has been borrowed from the field of ecology for innovation. The present article tries to compare this new metaphor with the previous metaphors and we have used expert's opinions. To this end, the eight principles for optimal metaphoras well as six acceptability rules for metaphors for metaphors used for innovation are considered in terms of two main hypotheses and 14 sub-hypotheses. This means that the biome metaphor is more suitable for explaining innovation. Because it will facilitate the analysis and policy-making of biome components in different fields including ecosystems and the relationships among them. Therefore, it is recommended that innovation policy makers make use of this new framework.