The innovation drives improvement of the processes and creation of products in the organizations (Buijtendijk et al., 2021). This strategic process makes it easier in some aspects, new business models, new products, new marketing expressions, among other characteristics and related attributes (Cheah & Yuen-Ping, 2021). Many ways of innovation dependents of the capacity of implement the creativity and optimize the commercial processes, by meaning, the invitation of products can appear as a popular way of improvement, so the new products tend to lost his impact later on in the massive adoption process in the market, which represents an acceleration for the perceived products to be known as truly innovating (Haro et al., 2017; Guzmán, 2018; Queyroi, 2020). In this sense, the organizations need to appeal to innovation alternatives which could be capable of supporting alternation and deformation of the market in the long term. By meaning, the innovation of the business model tends to resolve key problems in the market during a period of time and is easily adopted by leading companies to sustain the growth. (Morelos et al., 2021).

This purpose of the companies to increase the capacities for the creation of competitive advantages through goods and distinctive services raises the necessity to adopt the innovation inside of the structures of the organizations (Cui et al., 2021; Sánchez & Londoño, 2018). Therefore, the target of this article is to analyze the processes of innovation developed in the organizations, during the systematic revision of the literature in the national and international context for them to know and dig through the theoretical fundamentals that exist nowadays, the contributions, the relevance and application of the innovation in companies.

In order to respond to the research purpose, the following problems were posed: how is the innovation process developed in organizations; how do the theoretical foundations associated with innovation contribute to the sustainability of companies; what are the theoretical models and operational tools of innovation that facilitate the creation of value in organizations; what are the theoretical models and operational tools of innovation that facilitate the creation of value in organizations; and how do the theoretical foundations associated with innovation contribute to the sustainability of companies?

The methodology applied to this study was the systematic review of the literature, based on the qualitative approach and rational analysis, which allowed establishing theoretical foundations, conceptual models, tools and operational models associated with innovation and oriented to the improvement and competitiveness of organizations. For the primary information gathering process, the search for the keywords "innovation" and "organizations" and "organizational innovation" and "innovation applied organizations", in the scientific databases Scopus, Science direct and HebscoHost, in the period from 2015 to 2020, was considered. This first search showed a total of 2355 articles, which, when the inclusion criteria related to the topics of development and innovation, adoption advantages and contribution of innovation were applied, were reduced to 50 articles. Likewise, the importance of the systematic review technique is highlighted, with the contribution of similar research by authors who highlight the usefulness and contribution of this technique, which facilitates the synthesis of different perspectives of scientific knowledge about the research topic under study (García-Orozco et al., 2020, Alfaro-García et al., 2018, Blanco-Mesa et al., 2017, Blanco-Mesa et al., 2019).

The content of this article is structured as follows: first, there is the introduction, which presents the business context and the importance of innovation in organizations; second, there is the reference framework, which describes the theoretical foundations related to the development, advantages of the adoption and contributions of the application of innovation; third, the proposed methodology is developed, with a multi-method approach that combined the types of research of systematic literature review and qualitative analysis; and finally, the results of the study are presented -which answer the questions posed-, the discussion and the final conclusions.

This research is of systematic literature review, based on a qualitative approach with a rational analysis that allowed establishing the theoretical approaches, conceptual models, tools and operational models associated with innovation, as instruments for the improvement and competitiveness of organizations. As a primary source of information, articles from indexed journals related to the discipline addressed were considered; the time period within which the theories related to innovation were analyzed was in the range of the last five years (2015 to 2020). It was decided to choose the most recent studies of the authors with the highest number of citations, which was identified in the selected time range. The following methodological procedure from Table 1 was taken into account, taking into account the three essential stages (planning, information analysis and presentation of results and conclusions), for the development of the study.

Table 1

Stage 1. Planning guidelines to carry out the systematic literature review.	Stage 2. Analysis of the information found in the systematic literature review.	Stage 3. Presentation of results and conclusions of the systematic review of the literature.
Phase 1. Establish the reasons for to carry out the review.	Phase 4. Selection of the theoretical theoretical foundations of the bibliographic references bibliographic	Phase 8. Presentation of the results obtained.
Phase 2. Defining the period for the review.	.Phase 5. Extraction of the information information found in the selected bibliographic selected bibliographic references.	Phase 9. Presentation of conclusions.
Phase 3. Definition of the number of bibliographic sources to review.	Phase 6. Synthesis of extracted information.
	Phase 7. Analysis of the synthesized information.

Source: adapted from Lazaretti et al. (2018).

This research is of systematic literature review, based on a qualitative approach with a rational analysis that allowed establishing the theoretical approaches, conceptual models, tools and operational models associated with innovation, as instruments for the improvement and competitiveness of organizations. As a primary source of information, articles from indexed journals related to the discipline addressed were considered; the time period within which the theories related to innovation were analyzed was in the range of the last five years (2015 to 2020). It was decided to choose the most recent studies of the authors with the highest number of citations, which was identified in the selected time range.

The following methodological procedure from Table 1 was taken into account, taking into account the three essential stages (planning, information analysis and presentation of results and conclusions), for the development of the study.

(innovation AND organizational) AND (LIMIT-TO (OA, “all”)) AND (LIMIT-TO (PUB YEAR, 2020) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2019) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2018) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2017) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2016)) AND (LIMIT-TO (SUB AREA, “BUSI”))

(organizational innovation) AND (LIMIT-TO (OA, “all”)) AND (LIMIT-TO (PUB YEAR, 2020) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2019) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2018) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2017) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2016)) AND (LIMIT-TO (SUB AREA, “BUSI”))

(innovation applied organizations) AND (LIMIT-TO (OA, “all”)) AND (LIMIT-TO (PUB YEAR, 2020) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2019) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2018) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2017) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2016)) AND (LIMIT-TO (SUB AREA, “BUSI”))

For the collection of the referential information, a rigorous literature search was carried out on contributions and studies related to the main research topic, in the case of innovation in organizations. This first search yielded a total of 2355 articles, to which the inclusion criteria related to the topics of development and innovation, advantages of adoption and contribution of innovation were applied. As exclusion criteria, a time span from 2015 to 2020 was taken into account, in order to delimit the search with the purpose of obtaining information with a current perspective. Likewise, the VOSviewer software was used for the systematization of the data, observation and elaboration of the bibliometric networks of the documents with their respective authors, including the analysis of the abstract, research purpose, and inclusion criteria, with which the final articles were reduced to 50. To obtain each of the references, bibliographic databases were used: 19 articles from Science Direct, 18 articles from Scopus and 13 articles from Ebscohost, and keywords such as innovation, innovation in organizations and competitiveness were used. Figure 1 presents the correlation map of the keywords considered in the process of reviewing the analysis of innovation in organizations.

Figure 1

In this order of ideas, stage 1 of the methodological model used corresponds to the planning of guidelines to carry out the systematic literature review. These phases were followed for its execution:

Phase 1: in which the reasons for carrying out this review are determined and which are related to meeting the objectives proposed in this article, i.e., to highlight the importance of the application of innovation within organizations, an aspect that is treated with recent theoretical foundations in a global context.

Phase 2: the period in which the systematic review of the literature will be carried out is defined. This review was limited to a recent period (2015-2020), so certain articles that did not meet this criterion or that were not in accordance with the central theme developed were rejected despite the filters applied.

Phase 3: taking into account the previously selected period, 50 bibliographic references were chosen for the review, considering the national and international scope, and also that they were related to the topic of innovation in organizations.

Subsequently, stage 2 of the analysis of the information found in the systematic review of the literature was carried out in the following phases:

Phase 4: a set of theoretical foundations was gathered from the 50 bibliographic references from the 2015-2020 period, within which are the development of the innovation process, the advantages of adopting innovation in organizations and the contribution of innovation in competitiveness.

Phase 5: the most relevant information was extracted from these fundamentals.

Phase 6: the information was synthesized in a precise and coherent manner.

Phase 7: the information was analyzed to meet the proposed objectives.

Finally, stage 3, phase 8 was implemented, in which the results obtained were recorded, and phase 9, in which the conclusions were presented.

With the above, it was demonstrated that the systematic review of the literature for the bibliographic references selected in a recent period is very useful to support the need for organizations to implement the innovation process, which ratifies the importance of carrying out this process.

The descriptive results identified in the systematic literature review process, which respond to each of the research questions posed, are presented below:

This analysis of the systematic literature review allows us to identify three recent general perspectives on innovation research: theoretical models of innovation, studies of the innovation process and innovation in organizations. The content review of the articles allowed us to classify them according to their methodological approach ranging from theoretical to empirical-theoretical and predominantly empirical. From the three general perspectives, ten specific categories were derived that respond directly to innovation in organizations (importance, relevance, general aspects, specific aspects, conditions, characteristics, environment, strategies, criteria and results), in order to locate more precisely the findings of this article, which can be a useful reference resource for future research.

From the literature review, a trend towards the integration of the concept of innovation as a process that includes creativity and implementation of ideas as essential elements was observed. Theoretical studies are conceptually enriching the subject of innovation, theoretical-empirical and empirical studies have been developed in global organizational contexts that have validated the emerging theories on the subject (Queyroi et al., 2020; Albuquerque et al., 2020).

Likewise, the theoretical-practical contribution derived from knowledge, organizational learning and innovation drivers is highlighted. The approach in the studies shows a tendency towards empirical validation and the use of quantitative approaches (multivariate mathematical models) to corroborate the theory that has been recently generated (Cuevas et al., 2019).

The content of the literature leads us to expect in the near future research on the evolution of organizational capabilities, for the generation of creativity in its staff, elements that can enhance the conversion of ideas into market-oriented products and services, the implementation of new ideas in the early stages and their validation for the creation of products and services, and the effect of innovative ideas in the design of these products and services for consumer satisfaction (De Conto et al., 2016). As part of the final results of innovation in organizations, studies of the effects of innovation in improving organizational performance and its promising success in the future are expected (Flores et al., 2019; Guzman, 2018).

Recent research includes both theoretical and empirical studies, which is reflected in the diversity of the work done and the different approaches to the examination of this topic. From the recent review, especially in authors such as Eisenman (2015), Levine and Prietula (2015), Herskovits et al. (2015), McKinley et al. (2016), Sgourev (2015) Grimaldi et al. (2021), Lee and Trimi (2020), Karimi et al. (2020) and Hadjelias et al. (2020), the following perspectives in the study of innovation are identified: studies on theoretical models of innovation, on the innovation process and studies about innovation in organizations.

Within the ten research areas, creativity, knowledge generation and absorption, as well as collaborative networking and strategic orientation are seen as the specific topics to be developed to drive the generation of future innovations in organizations (Marín & Cuartas, 2019).

The total number of articles included in the literature review refer to studies conducted in developed countries (United States, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada and France), and only a few articles deal with research in emerging or developing countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and Mexico) (Pisano et al., 2015). In particular, it is observed that the theoretical study of innovation was conducted mostly in the context of the developed countries mentioned above, while for the case of empirical studies there is a greater participation of emerging countries. This is how the theoretical research on the topic of innovation in Latin American countries is reduced, which indicates an opportunity to launch new studies in the region to support empirical research (Sepúlveda et al., 2019).

Finally, in the literature review we can observe a trend in the characteristics of innovation studies: production of empirical studies with quantitative approaches in the context of developed countries, as mentioned in this study. Therefore, it is desirable in the near future to carry out empirical studies with both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches in Latin America and Asia, in order to generate more empirical evidence, generalize the findings to other contexts and contrast existing theories.