Development and Validation of a Comprehensive Toolkit for Assessing the Level of Innovation Management in Enterprises

<jats:p>This article focuses on the development and validation of a comprehensive toolkit for assessing the level of innovation management in enterprises, which enables a shift from measuring the external outcomes of innovation activities to identifying their internal managerial causes. The theoretical foundation of the toolkit consists of the concepts of absorptive capacity, dynamic capabilities, and the validated IMC model of innovation management capability. The toolkit includes a standardized questionnaire comprising 35 statements grouped into eleven latent factors on a 1–5 Likert scale. The pilot study was conducted on a sample of 59 respondents from two target groups: higher education institutions (Group A, n=32) and enterprises with active patent and trademark activities (Group B, n=27). A two-sample t-test revealed statistically significant differences between the groups on ten of the eleven factors (p&lt;0.05). Universities outperform in terms of potential absorptive capacity (4.04 vs. 2.80) and innovation strategy (3.72 vs. 3.28), whereas enterprises significantly outperform in marketing capabilities (4.11 vs. 2.34) and realized absorptive capacity (3.81 vs. 2.86). Correlation analysis revealed systemic dysfunctions: “strategic declarativeness” (r = ?0.511 between strategy and HR) and the “learning trap” (r = ?0.530 between organizational learning and portfolio management) in enterprises, as well as fragmentation in the management system of higher education institutions. The results were verified through an independent survey (2024, n=75). It was found that the systemic gap between knowledge generation and commercialization is a persistent institutional characteristic of both sectors.</jats:p>