Use of web mining in studying innovation

Area of Science:

• Business and Innovation Studies
• Information Science
• Technology Management

Background:

• Enterprises increasingly share business and innovation activities online.
• Website data presents a novel, yet underutilized, source for research.
• Traditional methods like patent and publication analysis offer limited scope.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate web mining as a practical and effective research method for innovation studies.
• To explore the R&D activities of UK-based green goods SMEs using web mining.
• To compare the insights gained from web mining with traditional unobtrusive research methods.

Main Methods:

• Web mining techniques were applied to analyze the websites of 296 UK-based green goods SMEs.
• Data quality dimensions (accuracy, completeness, currency, quantity, flexibility, accessibility) were examined.
• Findings were compared against conventional data sources such as patents and publications.

Main Results:

• Web mining revealed significantly more companies reporting R&D activities than traditional sources suggest.
• Website data provides insights into the downstream phases of the innovation process.
• Web mining identified a greater number of R&D activities than patent and publication analyses.

Conclusions:

• Web mining is a significant and useful complement to existing innovation research methods.
• It offers novel insights not easily obtainable through conventional unobtrusive data sources.
• While data quality and search strategy execution require careful consideration, web mining enhances innovation studies.