This book summarizes the results of Design Thinking Research carried out at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA and Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. The authors offer readers a closer look at Design Thinking with its processes of innovations and methods. The contents of the articles range from how to design ideas, methods and technologies via creativity experiments and wicked problem solutions, to creative collaboration in the real world and the connectivity of designers and engineers. But the topics go beyond this in their detailed exploration of design thinking and its use in IT systems engineering fields and even from a management perspective. The authors show how these methods and strategies work in companies, introduce new technologies and their functions and demonstrate how Design Thinking can influence as diverse a topic area as marriage. Furthermore, we see how special design thinking use functions in solving wicked problems in complex fields. Thinking and creating innovations are basically and inherently human - so is Design Thinking. Due to this, Design Thinking is not only a factual matter or a result of special courses nor of being gifted or trained: it's a way of dealing with our environment and improving techniques, technologies and life.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of current developments in the field of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Divided into three parts, the book first presents reflections on the concept of RI from various angles: how did it come about, who is involved and how might in be applied in various contexts, such as the academic environment or in developing countries. The second part discusses the actual application of RRI to technology development: for climate engineering, water management and energy technology along with a general discussion on how to integrate RRI in innovation trajectories. The last part offers a closer look at the application of RRI to the business context. This part offers lessons from comparable concepts such as social and sustainability innovation as well as insights from two case-studies, one in the food sector and the other in data management. As a whole, the book contributes to the ongoing development of the framework of RRI by giving an overview of the state-of-the art research, presenting the lessons learned from several case studies, and showing the way for future application of RI in other fields and cultural contexts, such as industry and developing countries.

This Palgrave Pivot analyses the evolution of strategies and business models adopted by financial operators that employ technological solutions to deliver financial products and services. The analysis is performed on a proprietary dataset built on different sources that highlight important differences in strategical approaches taken by FinTech companies, TechFin and BigTech, and banks (traditional and digital native). For each type, the authors underline their distinctive patterns, strengths and weaknesses. The main focus of the analysis in on the European market that is investigated also in the light of the difference and similarities with other markets (such as US and China). The unbundling and re-bundling of productive processes in finance, the treatment of information and the level of innovation in the customer relationship highlight the intense change that the banking activities of new financial services providers are currently dealing with, especially the retail segment. Despite the main international banks' implementation of innovative strategical approaches to take advantage of the digitalization of business and cope with competition, so far the level of the disruption brought by FinTech is not fully understood or widespread. This holds especially true for the smaller banks: the latter need to take a proactive approach to individuate a business model able to satisfy the new customer needs and the competitive pressure that are destined to increase and further evolve. This book addresses this and would appeal to academics, researchers and students of banking, FinTech and financial innovation alongside policy makers, regulatory authorities, FinTechs and banks.

"Focuses on functional, aesthetically pleasing, mechanically reliable, and easily made products that improve profitability for manufacturers and provide long-term satisfaction for customers. Offers concrete, practical insight immediately applicable to new product design and development projects."

This edited volume brings together research on symbiotic themes of entrepreneurship, resource planning, and regional development and their impact on global-local business imperatives. Discussions in this volume critically analyze the convergence of entrepreneurship, innovation, technology, business practices, public policies, political ideologies, and consumer values for improving the global-local business paradigm to support regional development. This book also delves into contemporary entrepreneurship models, converging business strategies towards entrepreneurial and industrial alliance in manufacturing, services, and marketing organizations. It contemplates the development of new business models and hybrid entrepreneurial perspectives to match the changing priorities of regional economic development in developing countries. This volume offers scholars new entrepreneurial visions and business perspectives of industries in emerging markets, while presenting a more integrated view to enable companies to innovate for long-term profitability and sustainability.

Innovation is about ideas that make life better. But what does it really take to deliver innovative propositions? And what separates companies that drive their industries forward from those that simply talk the talk? This book takes you inside the minds of the world's most effective innovators to answer these questions and more. In real stories from industries as diverse as healthcare, finance, technology, and telecommunications, business leaders reveal what it takes to bring new products and services to life. They weigh in on the big debates: how to design an innovative organization of diverse voices, how to protect and grow ideas so they succeed, and how to tune corporate radar to inspiration and turn the signals received into new value. An essential resource for leaders, aspiring leaders and students of entrepreneurship, business management, HRM, technology and innovation management, and design thinking, the book enables the reader to: Hear from leaders with direct responsibility for innovating in a wide range of industries and learn how they do it See how to structure for innovation, gain momentum inside an organization and use ideas to shift companies and industries Gain insight into what innovators look for when they sense the environment and learn to avoid common pitfalls and misconceptions that stop great ideas coming to life Approach innovation in a more balanced way with the 6 Building Blocks helping you prioritize execution and value delivery from inspiration to implementation

Taking a front-line view, The Conflict Survival Kit: Tools for Resolving Conflict at Workfocuses on topics supervisors, team leads and managers need to know to address conflict in organizations. Each chapter succinctly explains conflict theories, frameworks and models, while focusing on important interpersonal and management skills. This classroom text and on-the-job guide presents strategies that can be used immediately in the workplace and provides hands-on practice throughout. Fully updated in this edition, it includes a new section on cultural communication differences, more on mediation, strategies for staying calm during confrontation and a section on managing bullying in the workplace.

Creators and creative industries are struggling to navigate the digital age. Intellectual property rights, including copyrights, trademarks, and patents, offer invaluable tools to help creative industries remain viable and sustainable. But to be fully effective, they must be considered as part of a greater ecosystem. Cultivating Copyright offers a framework for tailoring flexible strategies and adaptive solutions suited to diverse creative industries. Tailored solutions entail change on four fronts: business models and strategies, legal policies and practices, technological measures, and cultural and normative features. Creating strong creative industries through tailored solutions serves critical functions: promoting richly varied artistic endeavors and supporting democratic flourishing.

This book explains how and why the state-socialist regime in Hungary used technology and propaganda to foster industrialization and the conservation of natural resources simultaneously. Further, this book explains why this process was ultimately a failure. By exploring the environmental pre-history of communist Hungary before analyzing the economic development of the Kadar regime, Pal investigates how economic and environmental policies and technology transfer were negotiated between the official communist ideology and the global economic reality of capitalist markets. Pal argues that the modernization project of the Kadar regime (1956-1990) facilitated ecological consciousness - at both an individual and societal level - which provoked great social unrest when positive environmental impact was not achieved. Today, global issues of climate change, urban pollution, resource depletion, and overpopulation transcend political systems, but economic and environmental discourses varied greatly in the twentieth century. This volume is important reading for all those interested in economic and environmental history, as well as political science.

This title was first published in 2000: An in depth analysis of employment and technology issues in the housing and construction industries of developing countries, in the context of globalization of economies and increased opportunities for advanced technology transfer. Supported by case studies from Asia including the misallocation of resources that led to the Asian crisis of 1997 and the experience of Shanghai in advanced technology transfer. Ganesan advances a number of strategies to achieve higher employment creation, a proper mix of resources and sustained growth.

Modern technologies are central to creation of wealth through business expansion leading to economic development. This is visible in the fast-paced technology-induced economic growth experienced by most countries, especially by rapidly growing economies such as India, China, Brazil, South Korea, among others. Increasing individual scientific contribution, nurturing entrepreneurial talent, promoting innovative competence, strategically prioritizing and investing in technologies and enhancing national economic wealth are some of the important Technology Management goals. Technology Management has emerged as a strategic and knowledge domain of interest to academicians, practitioners, and policy makers across the globe. Technology Management has also evolved into an inter-disciplinary concern which requires national and international collaborations and exchange of insights. Keeping this objective in mind the International Conference on Technology Management is organized by the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, a leader in research and education in Technology Management for the last several decades. This conference aims at integrating experiences of academicians, industry leaders, Technology Managers and Innovators towards effective knowledge creation and economic development. The contributions of the present volume are presented at the International Conference on Technology Management-2012 during 18-20 July 2012.

Published in 1993. Software reuse has been shown to achieve improvements in productivity, quality and timeliness of software. The collection of papers in this book were given at a seminar organized by UNICOM and the British Computer Society Software Reuse Specialist Group. They address the reasons why software reuse can maximize an organization's return from past expenditure and ensure a good future expenditure. Increasing the automation of software development requires access to explicit knowledge about processes and products involved. The chapters examine the relationship between reuse and other aspects of software engineering, including management techniques and structures, CASE, methodologies and object orientation. In addition, the papers aim to provide a structures insight into new techniques which will become available through the 1990s. This text is suitable for software managers and directors, software engineers, software professionals, academics, and other involved in software engineering research.

In the absence of a widely accepted and common definition of social enterprise (SE), a large research project, the "International Comparative Social Enterprise Models" (ICSEM) Project, was carried out over a five-year period; it involved more than 200 researchers from 55 countries and relied on bottom-up approaches to capture the SE phenomenon. This strategy made it possible to take into account and give legitimacy to locally embedded approaches, thus resulting in an analysis encompassing a wide diversity of social enterprises, while simultaneously allowing for the identification of major SE models to delineate the field on common grounds at the international level. These SE models reveal or confirm an overall trend towards new ways of sharing the responsibility for the common good in today's economies and societies. We tend to consider as good news the fact that social enterprises actually stem from all parts of the economy. Indeed, societies are facing many complex challenges at all levels, from the local to the global level. The diversity and internal variety of SE models are a sign of a broadly shared willingness to develop appropriate-although sometimes embryonic-responses to these challenges, on the basis of innovative economic/business models driven by a social mission. In spite of their weaknesses, social enterprises may be seen as advocates for and vehicles of the general interest across the whole economy. Of course, the debate about privatisation, deregulation and globalised market competition-all factors that may hinder efforts in the search for the common good-has to be addressed as well. The first of a series of four ICSEM books, Social Enterprise in Asia will serve as a key reference and resource for teachers, researchers, students, experts, policy makers, journalists and other categories of people who want to acquire a broad understanding of the phenomena of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship as they emerge and develop across the world.

In the absence of a widely accepted and common definition of social enterprise (SE), a large research project, the "International Comparative Social Enterprise Models" (ICSEM) Project, was carried out over a five-year period; it involved more than 200 researchers from 55 countries and relied on bottom-up approaches to capture the SE phenomenon. This strategy made it possible to take into account and give legitimacy to locally embedded approaches, thus resulting in an analysis encompassing a wide diversity of social enterprises, while simultaneously allowing for the identification of major SE models to delineate the field on common grounds at the international level. These SE models reveal or confirm an overall trend towards new ways of sharing the responsibility for the common good in today's economies and societies. We tend to consider as good news the fact that social enterprises actually stem from all parts of the economy. Indeed, societies are facing many complex challenges at all levels, from the local to the global level. The diversity and internal variety of SE models are a sign of a broadly shared willingness to develop appropriate although sometimes embryonic-responses to these challenges, on the basis of innovative economic/business models driven by a social mission. In spite of their weaknesses, social enterprises may be seen as advocates for and vehicles of the general interest across the whole economy. Of course, the debate about privatisation, deregulation and globalised market competition-all factors that may hinder efforts in the search for the common good-has to be addressed as well. The second of a series of four ICSEM books, Social Enterprise in Latin America will serve as a key reference and resource for teachers, researchers, students, experts, policy makers, journalists and other categories of people who want to acquire a broad understanding of the phenomena of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship as they emerge and develop across the world.

Despite the topic's urgency and centrality, this is the first edited volume to offer a comprehensive assessment of the varying approaches to early engagement with new technologies, including nanotechnology, synthetic biology, biotechnology and ICT. Covering five main approaches to early engagement-constructive technology assessment (CTA), value-sensitive design (VSD), midstream modulation (MM), the network approach for moral evaluation, and political technology assessment-the book will be a pivotal text in the rapidly developing research field of ELSI, which explores the ethical, legal, and social implications of new technologies.

Featuring leading scholars who discuss each early engagement approach in turn, the chapters cover both theory and applications, and include evaluative assessments of specific instances of early adoption of technologies. Further contributions focus on theoretical issues relevant to all approaches, including interdisciplinary cooperation, normativity and intervention, and political and public relevance. The publication has added profile due to the requirement of multi-billion-dollar research programs in the US and Europe to engage in ELSI research alongside that of the technical development itself, even in the early stages. Its comprehensive scrutiny of the core factors in early engagement will ensure a readership of policy makers as well as scientists and engineers.

Environmental sustainability creates both tremendous business opportunities and formidable threats to established companies across virtually all industry sectors. Yet many companies tackle the issue in a superficial or passive way, rather than considering fundamental changes to their existing business models. By ignoring the opportunities of Green Business Model Transformations, companies exclude themselves from a large variety of potential means to create economic value. In addition to ordinary product and process innovations, they can change the rules of the game within an industry towards environmental sustainability.
Green Business Model Transformations, however, are challenging ventures: New, green business models with all their uncertainties and inherent complex systemic characteristics are difficult to design, assess, and implement successfully, particularly in the context of established companies that often entail complex structures and considerable inertia.
As a result, there is a great need for guidance in management practice. This publication addresses this need with a general approach to "Managing Green Business Model Transformations" that is based on a broad theoretical foundation, illustrated by many real-world examples from various industry sectors."

The overarching aim of Finance, Innovation and Geography: Harnessing Knowledge Dynamics in German Biotechnology is to explore linkages between geographies of finance and relational geographies of innovation. This is achieved by questioning how investment activities affect the unfolding of innovations and in turn are affected by it. This book focuses on biotechnology innovation processes from the perspective of relational economic geography. It reconstructs the unfolding in time and space of eight innovations in German biotechnology. Each one is represented in a qualitative case study. The analysis focuses on the relational work of building, transforming, ending and replacing of collaborative relationships and organizational arrangements surrounding emergent innovations including investment relations and relational work by investors. In this way, the contribution of investors to unfolding innovations is studied with sensitivity to context and situated interactions. The geography of these dynamics is conceptualized by drawing on the recent literature on relational proximity and distance as well as ideas of materiality and space. This book provides a unique perspective, and shows that innovation paths are strongly interwoven with local and temporary opportunities as well as crises, and that investment is embedded in these dynamics. This is essential reading for students and academics of both economics and innovation.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the dynamics underpinning the successful performance of local innovation systems (LIS), that is, spatial concentration of innovation activities in specific geographical areas, characterized by the synergetic co-localization of research centers, innovation-driven enterprises, large corporations and capital providers. The reader will gain a deeper knowledge of LIS theory and learn about the theoretical and empirical challenges of studying the LIS from a relational perspective. The book also provides an analytical framework to explore the level of connectivity among LIS actors through the use of social network analysis (network architecture) and second, to assess the variety of different types of relationships that local actors put in place to produce innovation within the LIS (network portfolio). More specifically, this book explores which network configuration is associated with a successful LIS by deriving evidence from the empirical study of the biopharma LIS in the Greater Boston Area (GBA), which has been exemplified as a benchmark case in terms of successful LIS performance. This book also contributes to the theoretical debate about the optimal configuration of network structure (e.g. network closure vs. network openness). In capturing the heterogeneous nature of the LIS demography, it addresses the challenges brought about by the adoption of a holistic approach. Finally, the study provides insights into the network portfolio composition, which has been underexplored by extant literature. Besides addressing the scientific community in the field, this book will also be a valuable resource with practical implications for policymakers and those actors willing to undertake an active role in the development of an LIS in their own regions.

This book captures a range of important developments that have occurred in Information Systems over the last forty years, with a particular focus on India and the developing world. Over this time, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Information Systems (IS) have come to play a critical role in supporting, complementing and automating managerial decisions, shaping and transforming industries, and contributing to deep societal and economic change. This volume examines a range of topics for those interested in the adoption and use of these technologies across varied situations. It combines empirical studies on the application and impact of IS with commentaries, debates and insights on the transformative role that IT and the IT industry have played, and continue to play, within India as well as globally. The book draws attention to issues and challenges that organizations grapple with in tech-enabled environments, and provides insights on the role of automation and computational techniques. It explores the global impact of the technology revolution on economic growth and development, electronic globalization, and the wider opportunities and challenges of a hi-tech world. The chapters cover various themes such as e-government in India, internet-based distribution systems, internet banking, and use of collaborative IT tools and functions to support virtual teams in the software industry and the business process outsourcing industry. Other chapters focus on methodological advances, such as systems thinking which finds applications in organizational decision-making, and the use of fuzzy logic. This volume will interest professionals and scholars of information technology and information systems, computer studies, IT systems, economics, and business and management studies.

Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship makes a contribution towards building a museum perspective of innovation that takes into consideration the unique role of museums in society. Beginning and ending with the idea of museum innovation in a wider sense, the book takes digital innovation as a particular focus. Drawing on innovation theories from business studies and case studies from national museums in the US and the UK, as well as numerous examples of innovative museum projects around the globe, the author unpacks, in practical terms, what it means for museums to be innovative and socially enterprising. As a result, Eid presents a research-based model of innovation in museums, which is flexible enough to be fully or partially adopted by any museum, regardless of size, location, mission or nature of the collections it houses. As such, this model makes innovation in museums scalable, replicable and feasible to start and operate. Supplying the museum studies field with essential terminologies and conceptual frameworks related to innovation, Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship helps to forge new ideas and create common ground with other disciplines. Therefore, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and graduate students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, digital humanities and business studies. It should also be of great interest to practitioners working in museums around the globe.

More than ever, organisations are facing a data avalanche from various sources, be they in electronic or hard copy format. How an organisation manages this ever-increasingly important resource - data - can benefit or hinder its ability to achieve its objectives. Creating and Managing a CRM Platform for Your Organisation not only covers how the principles of data management, including data quality and data security, can be applied to an organisation's customer relationship management (CRM) platform, but also highlights how aspects of data management, marketing and technology are needed to operate, develop and manage a CRM platform in order to carry out tasks such as reporting and analysis, developing data plans, undertaking data audits, data migrations and campaign mailings which will result in an organisation using data effectively in order to achieve its goals and objectives. The issues and topics covered apply to all organisations that use a CRM platform and the data it contains as part of their business activities, regardless of the industry sector or size of the organisation. A comprehensive overview of the practices that can be effectively implemented when managing a CRM platform, this book is essential reading for professionals involved in the administration of the CRM platform within their organisation and data management.

This book looks at service innovation, service industries, and innovation performance in services. It seeks a broader explanation and understanding of services, service innovation and its performance, and the future of service innovation in different service industries. In addition, it discusses service domination in the big economies around the world and how that was created and supported by service innovation. The book will be useful for academics interested in service innovation as well as practitioners in the service business.

Strategic Renewal is an original research anthology offering insight into a subject area which, although critical for the sustained success of organizations, has received relatively little attention as distinct from the more general phenomenon of strategic change. Firstly, by providing a summary of the literature, this research anthology helps graduate students and new researchers grasp the current state of affairs in the field. Secondly, this research anthology will help update the knowledge base of the existing researchers in the field. By bringing together various studies, the research anthology determines the core concepts of the field and elucidates the key gaps and future research areas. Through contributions building on the knowledge bases of other disciplines, this research anthology develops an interdisciplinary research agenda, giving the reader an in-depth understanding of the mediating, moderating, and antecedent variables concerning strategic renewal. Strategic Renewal aims to provide a state-of-understanding to the subject, as well as a clear picture of the cross-disciplinary landscape that informs the subject. Thus, this research anthology is essential reading for managers, consultants, and other practitioners, as well as students and scholars of business.

Evidence-Based Decision-Making: How to Leverage Available Data and Avoid Cognitive Biases examines how a wide range of factual evidence, primarily derived from a variety of data available to organizations, can be used to improve the quality of business decision-making, by helping decision makers circumvent the various cognitive biases that adversely impact how we all think. The book is built on the following premise: During the past decade, the new 'data world' emerged, in which the rush to develop competencies around business analytics and data science can be characterized as nothing less than the new commercial arms race. The ever-expanding volume and variety of data are well known, as are the great advances in data processing/analytics, data visualization, and related information production-focused capabilities. Yet, comparatively little effort has been devoted to how the informational products of business analytics and data science are 'consumed' or used in the organizational decision-making processes, as the available evidence shows that only some of that information is used to drive some business decisions some of the time. Evidence-Based Decision-Making details an explicit process describing how the universe of available and applicable evidence, which includes organizational and other data, industry benchmarks, scientific studies, and professional experience, can be assessed, amalgamated, and funneled into an objective driver of key business decisions. Introducing key concepts in relation to data and evidence, and the history of evidence-based management, this new and extremely topical book will be essential reading for researchers and students of data analytics as well as those working in the private and public sectors, and in the voluntary sector.