STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT EVALUATION OF U.S. INNOVATION POLICY: OPERATIONALIZING THE LIFEG FRAMEWORK

Abstract

This study examines U.S. innovation policy through the lens of strategic management by developing and operationalizing the LIFEG Framework (Likhota Innovation Policy Effectiveness and Governance Framework) as an evaluative model for assessing the strategic management coherence of national innovation systems. Existing approaches often analyze innovation policy through isolated indicators, such as public R&D funding, institutional structures, patent activity, or commercialization outcomes, while providing limited tools for evaluating how strategic priorities, governance mechanisms, support instruments, and economic outcomes are managed as an integrated system. The proposed framework integrates five dimensions: institutional governance, public support mechanisms, commercialization capacity, strategic technological priorities, and economic performance. The study applies a mixed-method approach combining theoretical analysis with empirical assessment based on publicly available U.S. and international data, including federal R&D obligations, national R&D expenditures, R&D intensity, patent activity, agency-level strategic concentration, and comparative international innovation indicators. The findings show that the effectiveness of U.S. innovation policy depends not only on the scale of funding or individual policy instruments, but on the quality of strategic management across governance structures, support mechanisms, commercialization processes, technological priorities, and economic outcomes. The article contributes to innovation management and public administration research by introducing an operational framework for evaluating policy coherence within complex national innovation systems.