The article attempts to draw attention to the necessity of teaching today’s students (tomorrow’s managers) the true meaning of the innovation phenomenon as a most significant resource for the realization of the sustainable development conception. The potential socio-ethical nature of this resource is discussed through comparison with the more traditional colonization mechanism of capital accumulation, still at work due to the historically formed capitalist structure of center vs. periphery. The authors note the controversial nature of the global diffusion of innovations and its tendency to reproduce the relations of “innovative imperialism.” The article stress the importance of developing the mental construction of the “innovation paradigm” with the students, shows the systemic character of the innovations theory and the problems related to the adequacy of its terminological paradigm. The authors discusses conceptual specification with regards to the mechanisms of innovations diffusion (transfer and spill-over), as well as some other notional units within the theoretical apparatus of the innovations theory.