In contemporary economic and technology policy raising innovative capabilities of firms is central to the competitiveness of a business location. The basic premise for national or regional innovativeness is the aggregate of all firms' innovative capabilities, especially those of groups. Against this background, the aim of this thesis is to investigate the conditions, which are necessary for increasing the innovative capabilities of groups and which are improving the efficiency of group wide innovation processes. The goals were to develop and implement a practice-orientated process model for this group wide innovation process and to deduce recommendations for the realisation of a successful innovation management in groups. To ensure practical relevance an intensive co-operation with the Management Holding of the BÖHLER UDDEHOLM Group and the BÖHLER THYSSEN Group and with subsidiaries in Austria and abroad occured. Consequently, the practical problems involved with the management of innovation within groups were pointed out and integrated in the scientific investigations. As a result practice-orientated recommendations for these problems were deduced.