In this chapter, we lay out the basic frame for studying innovation management. To do so, we are going to try to understand why innovation is important for society, for companies, and for individuals, and to do that we take our point of departure in the “urtext” of innovation research, namely Schumpeter’s work on Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy and especially the notion of Creative Destruction. To follow that up, we are going to untangle how innovation management fits within a broader context of capitalism as an economic system, within a particular ideology, and within the operations of the modern corporation.