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Books > Business & Economics > Business & management > Management of specific areas > Research & development management
Global economic growth, recently fuelled by Asia's emerging economies, has greatly accelerated the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and boosted demand for scarce natural resources, including energy, food and mineral raw materials. These developments are pushing the planet close to its ecological boundaries. Transforming the world economy towards sustainability, while ensuring decent levels of resource use for all global citizens, is the greatest challenge of our time. This book explores how innovation systems need to be adapted to successfully confront these challenges. The first chapter introduces the concept of sustainability-oriented innovation systems which highlights the systematic differences between systems that have developed along current resource-intensive technological trajectories and those that address the impending environmental mega-problems. The subsequent articles present case studies of sustainability-oriented innovations in a number of policy areas, including energy efficiency, electric mobility and generation of renewable energy, in China and India. These case studies confirm the specificities of innovation systems geared towards a green techno-economic paradigm. This book was originally published as a special issue of Innovation and Development.
A strategic requirement is something an organisation sets out to achieve; it could be the long-term vision the organisation sets itself, the key business condition for a specific project to be a success or a business strategy to achieve a goal. A set of strategic requirements defines the goals, strategies and tactics that organisations need to put in place to give them direction and impetus. Business analysts and consultants have to understand strategic requirements to know where projects can deliver business benefits and where not. The ability of the analyst to interview, gather, analyse, model and present strategic requirements is key to success. The primary tool consultants and business analysts use for communication is talking; but, if you cannot present all that incredible information back to your client effectively, it is hard for them and you to get to grips quickly enough with what is going on. Being able to present a model is really powerful because it provides a visual format and structure on one page to reason about those strategic requirements. Dr Karl A. Cox offers a process, guidelines and ideas - that have been tried and tested in practice - for conducting interviews and shows you how to rapidly turn interview findings into strategic requirements models all on one page, to present to your clients, customers, team and / or supervisors.
This book analyses the determining factors behind productivity and innovation amongst Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore, and within the context of South East Asia, in order to offer recommendations for increasing productivity and aiding economic growth. SME firms are an influential driver of economic growth in advanced world economies like the USA, Germany, Japan and South Korea. Throughout the 2000s, Singapore experienced a decline in economic growth which was linked to decreasing productivity in its SMEs. The decline triggered a transformational policy by a Government intent on forging a 'high skill-high productivity' future. Given substantial evidence that low productivity growth occurred in sectors where immigrants dominated the workforce, the seeds of recovery focused on improving productivity and innovation amongst SMEs in those sectors. Hence, this book investigates the factors determining productivity amongst SMEs across the manufacturing sector. It utilises personal interviews with global experts and CEOs, combined with primary data collected from a major international Delphi survey, and interviews with 215 SME owners and managers in Singapore. This data helps us to better understand how these productivity-enhancing factors can be used to increase performance amongst SMEs. By investigating the nature and process of total factor productivity in Singapore's SMEs, this book tells the policy story behind the revolution. To provide a comparative analysis, Singapore's story is placed within a South East Asian context. The unfolding narrative contains important lessons for policy makers and industry globally, as they assess the strategic choices available to them for improving productivity and innovation. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of innovation and productivity, as well as economic development officers, government policy advisors, SME business managers and sustainable businesses.
Over last few decades, the world has witnessed, the process of rapid diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICT) that enforced remarkable changes and structural shifts going far beyond economic sphere of life. ICT become fast available widespread and rapidly growing access to and use of ICT, additionally enhances the process of technological substitution, which consists in switching from the 'old' to 'new' technological solutions. The on-going digital revolution, undeniably, pervasively impacts and reshapes societies and economies, hence deserves special attention and interest. This book provides extensive evidence on information and communication technologies development diffusion patterns, unveils specific 'network effects' that enhance rapid spread of ICT, and detect major macroeconomic determinants of this process, across 36 Asian economies over the period 1980-2015. Moreover, this research traces country-specific patterns of the unique process. We consider two types of technological substitution, namely: 'fixed-to-mobile' type technological substitution process encompasses switching from fixed telephony ('old technology') to mobile telephony ('new technology'); while the 'fixed-to-wireless' type technological substitution - switching from fixed (narrowband and/or broadband) fixed Internet networks ('old technologies') to wireless (mainly broadband) Internet networks ('new technologies'). Moreover, this study empirically identifies the potential effect of selected macroeconomic factors, which may potentially enhance dynamic spread of ICT.
How do we advance? As individuals, families, and businesses? As societies, nations, and a species? In a world where it's said there is nothing new under the sun, we humans are remarkably resourceful at creating new things. The key to innovation is understanding, but not just by using facts, data, and casual observations. Progress demands the profound and useful understanding of a person or a thing, a situation or an issue. And profound and useful understanding that truly effects change is that most elusive of phenomena: insight. How To Be Insightful provides a novel and deeply practical framework that anyone can use to generate more powerful and impactful insights from the increasing volumes of data we all face every day, whatever we do. The framework - the STEP Prism of Insight - has been developed through decades of both practice and training, and the book includes many exercises designed to help strengthen and develop readers' insight muscles. The book explains the history, psychology, and neuroscience of insight and includes snapshots of insight from international experts in many different fields - psychology and neuroscience, music and acting, forensic science and market research.
Capitalism produced entrepreneurs and property rights, the two basic pillars of innovation and growth. As the speed of technology is steadily increasing only radical innovation can be the name of the game. This book discusses technology and innovation trends by looking into historical examples and telling the latest business stories. It opens the discourse about pirates, pioneers, innovators and imitators; proposes the framework of dominant, science-driven and high-tech industry for innovation management and gives insights into intellectual property rights, industrial designs and technical risk management. Finally, it offers 8 important innovation principles for technology driven enterprises that have turned out to have a big effect on the outcome - and in the end on growth.
The world beyond 2020 will be profoundly different from today. Radical transformative technologies are changing the relationship between mankind and machines in a way that even Wells, Orwell, or Jobs could not fathom. Nobody can tell for certain what will emerge from these tectonic shifts, save for the fact that the status quo is already obsolete. In effect, humanity has entered a new age in its evolution: the Symbiocene era. Societal issues notwithstanding, the existential concern for businesses and organizations everywhere is pressing: how to survive, or better yet, thrive in this brave new scary world? The Binary Firm explores the orchestrating strategies to get in front of the technological tsunami that is sweeping the globe. Tsunami is not too strong a word: witness the threat posed by artificial intelligence to the very nature of work. This book constructs a conceptual management framework engineered to anticipate changes and empower the organization to exploit them to its immediate advantage. The exposition goes beyond worn-out buzzwords like innovation, disruption, and collaboration. It dives into the underlying foundation of an organization impacting its financial destiny. This book will resonate with managers and entrepreneurs who may struggle to master the often-mystifying rigors of digital forces. As goes the new adage, every business is a software company. But how to tame this feral beast? Readers will find pragmatic answers herein. No organization can afford the status quo in this era of pervasive interconnections. This is the playbook to change your game and succeed at digitally transforming your organization without breaking the bank.
This book systematizes the concepts of business relationships and network embeddedness, taking a new approach to internationalization, relevant for the global economy. It reflects the growing importance of network internationalization theory and explores the impact of embeddedness in domestic and foreign relationships on a company's performance. The author questions the validity of the distinction between domestic and foreign activity of companies and demonstrates that in the B2B market, there are actually no exclusively domestic companies which are not directly or indirectly connected with foreign entities. Chapters cover both small to medium sized enterprises and large multinational corporations, presenting a qualitative analysis of over 400 companies including case studies from the IT and furniture industries. This informative study will provide useful insight for academics and students of business and management, international business and organization studies.
The world beyond 2020 will be profoundly different from today. Radical transformative technologies are changing the relationship between mankind and machines in a way that even Wells, Orwell, or Jobs could not fathom. Nobody can tell for certain what will emerge from these tectonic shifts, save for the fact that the status quo is already obsolete. In effect, humanity has entered a new age in its evolution: the Symbiocene era. Societal issues notwithstanding, the existential concern for businesses and organizations everywhere is pressing: how to survive, or better yet, thrive in this brave new scary world? The Binary Firm explores the orchestrating strategies to get in front of the technological tsunami that is sweeping the globe. Tsunami is not too strong a word: witness the threat posed by artificial intelligence to the very nature of work. This book constructs a conceptual management framework engineered to anticipate changes and empower the organization to exploit them to its immediate advantage. The exposition goes beyond worn-out buzzwords like innovation, disruption, and collaboration. It dives into the underlying foundation of an organization impacting its financial destiny. This book will resonate with managers and entrepreneurs who may struggle to master the often-mystifying rigors of digital forces. As goes the new adage, every business is a software company. But how to tame this feral beast? Readers will find pragmatic answers herein. No organization can afford the status quo in this era of pervasive interconnections. This is the playbook to change your game and succeed at digitally transforming your organization without breaking the bank.
This book is a selection of the most relevant contributions to the LCM 2011 conference in Berlin. The material explores scientific and practical solutions to incorporating life cycle approaches into strategic and operational decision making. There are several sections addressing methodological topics such as LCSM approaches, methods and tools, while more application-oriented sections deal with the implementation of these approaches in relevant industrial sectors including agriculture and food, packaging, energy, electronics and ICT, and mobility.
With rapidly evolving emerging technologies, the business world is entering a phase of reform. Within times of change, transformative and disruptive environments as well as uncertain futures have created a difficult landscape for leaders within business. Exploring the landscape and providing valuable insight into the leadership among these challenging times, mean that business leaders can rely on Leading within Digital Worlds to provide them with a robust analysis of leadership practices and process to take them forward in the digital age. Pete Grindrod presents Leading within Digital Worlds in a way that will ensure this is an important text for business leaders in remaining at the forefront of the business world in these times of technological and digital evolution.The results of an in-depth study are presented in this title drawing on much of Pete's expertise in leading in the digital world.
The Future of Work in Asia and Beyond presents the findings and associated implications arising from a collaborative research study conducted on the potential impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR - or Industry 4.0) on the labour markets, occupations and associated future workforce competencies and skills across ten countries. The 4IR concerns the digital transformation in society and business - an interface between technologies in the physical, digital and biological disciplines. The book explores many related issues: the nature of the 4IR, as well as demographic, generational and socio-cultural issues, economic and political perspectives, public and private sector similarities and differences, business strategy and managerial implications, human resource management/planning strategies, policies and practices, industry innovations, 'best practice' cases and comparative country studies. Chapters are based on a framework which combines labour market and multiple stakeholder theories. Issues are explored through the perceptions of organisational managers based in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand to provide an analysis of organisational, industry and government preparedness for the 4IR. This book is recommended reading for anyone wanting to gain an understanding of the 4IR and a range of related challenges and issues, as well as suggested strategies for governments, education and industry that are necessary to address them.
Large technological systems, such as seaports, nuclear power stations, wind farms and natural gas extraction, provide vital functions for society. And yet these large technological systems have an impact on different stakeholder groups in both positive and negative ways. This book defines responsible innovation and describes how both the innovation process and the resulting innovation outcome can be designed, created and implemented in a way that respects the various stakeholder groups involved and affected by the system. Taking a case-based approach, a number of large technological systems are profiled, including hydraulic engineering, nuclear energy, smart metering, and wind power. The values of each of the stakeholder groups, and the costs and benefits of the systems presented, are analysed. The book concludes by combining these insights to provide a framework for how responsible innovation of large technological systems can be implemented in practice. The book will be of particular interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in technology and innovation management, and corporate governance, CSR and business ethics.
This volume presents a distinctly multilevel perspective on creativity and innovation that considers individual-level, team-level, and firm-level factors. In illustrating these factors, this volume presents both theoretical and practical implications to guide researchers and practitioners alike in the continued study and advancement of creativity and innovation in organizations. Chapter authors not only discuss the abilities, personality, and motivational attributes that contribute to employee creativity, but they also address the impact of leadership and climate on creative performance in teams. Subsequently, firm-level influences such as planning, learning, strategy, and professions that influence the success of creative and innovative efforts are examined. With contributions from leading scholars around the globe, this book offers a comprehensive review of creativity and innovation to assist researchers and practitioners in their quests to understand and improve organizational creativity and innovation. This is an essential resource for scholars, researchers, or graduate students interested in creativity, innovation, and organizational behavior.
U.S. manufacturing is today in a critical period. As a consequence of new global competitors, changes in technologies, and significant shifts in national priorities, our manufacturing base has shrunk alarmingly and thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost. To address this problem, a unique team was formed called the Manufacturing Vision Group, which included members from five major companies (Chaparral Steel, DEC, Ford Motor Company, Hewlett-Packard, and Eastman Kodak) and four major universities (Harvard, MIT, Purdue, and Stanford). In The Perpetual Enterprise Machine, this group argues that the development project is the vehicle to change a firm's products, processes, and capabilities in order to compete successfully in today's dynamic business environment. The manufacturer that can execute successful projects - leading to new products and processes - will be the one that prospers in the years ahead. Projects become the mechanism for growth and learning for successful firms. The Perpetual Enterprise Machine outlines seven critical elements that outstanding development projects have in common, principles that can be powerful engines of success for the manufacturer facing the challenges of today's fiercely competitive environment. Successful firms recognize and nurture their core capabilities, which are uniquely defined by their hardware, software, and humanware systems and which are crucial to the success of projects. A guiding vision, shared by all members of the cross-functional teams has three levels of specificity. They push the performance envelope, using the immediate project goals to also push the company's capabilities along other dimensions (such as process technology).They have leadership, someone who can navigate uncertain terrain, who sees the project's essential elements from beginning to end, creating integrity in the project and its outcome. They instill the team with a sense of ownership and commitment, linking their personal success, status, and esteem to accomplishing project goals. They use multiple forms of prototyping to learn rapidly and reduce mistakes and misunderstandings. And they integrate within projects, approaching individual tasks in terms of a system-wide solution. Throughout the book, the Manufacturing Vision Group illustrates these seven principles with real life case histories. We see the story behind Kodak's development of the FunSaver camera (done on a unique CAD/CAM system that greatly helped integration and shortened the lead time from design to production); Fords 1991 Crown Victoria, the first project launched under its Concept-to-Customer system; Chaparral Steels development of the worlds first horizontal steel caster; and Hewlett-Packard's wildly successful DeskJet printer. The Perpetual Enterprise Machine delivers the insights of some of the top minds from industry and academia on one of the primary concerns of American business - how to revitalize our manufacturing industries. Visionary - yet engaging and immediately accessible - it gives managers the opportunity to profit from the trials and triumphs of five major corporations, and helps them shape the kinds of projects that will thrive and prosper in the years ahead.
Expert techniques and effective practices in product development In this book, the Product Development & Management Association brings together practical, authoritative approaches to every aspect of the product development process, from idea generation to delivery of the final product and commercialization. The ToolBook provides cross-functional coverage of such topics as:
With effective methods, tools, and techniques in every chapter, The PDMA ToolBook for New Product Development is an essential book for new product development professionals, including Project Leaders, Process Owners, and Program or Portfolio Managers in a broad range of industries from heavy manufacturing to services. Find out more about the PDMA at: www.pdma.org
This book discusses how product platform and product family design can be used successfully to increase variety within a product line, shorten manufacturing lead times, and reduce overall costs within a product line. The material serves as a reference and a hands-on guide for practitioners involved in the design, planning and production of products. Real-life case studies that explain the benefits of platform based product development are included.
This book contains all refereed papers accepted during the ninth edition of the conference that took place at the Cite Internationale Universitaire de Paris on December 18-19, 2018. Mastering complex systems requires an integrated understanding of industrial practices as well as sophisticated theoretical techniques and tools. This explains the creation of an annual go-between forum in Paris dedicated to academic researchers & industrial actors working on complex industrial systems architecture, modeling & engineering. These proceedings cover the most recent trends in the emerging field of Complex Systems, both from an academic and a professional perspective. A special focus is put on "Products & services development in a digital world". The CSD&M Paris 2018 conference is organized under the guidance of CESAM Community (http://cesam.community/en). CESAM Community has been developed since 2010 by the non-profit organization CESAMES Association to organize the sharing of good practices in Enterprise and Systems Architecture and to certify the level of knowledge and proficiency in this field through CESAM certification.
During much of the twentieth century, informal employment and entrepreneurship was commonly depicted as a residue from a previous era. Its continuing presence was seen to be a sign of "backwardness" whilst the formal economy represented "progress". In recent decades, however, numerous studies have revealed not only that informal employment is extensive and persistent but also that it is growing relative to formal employment in many populations. Whilst in the developing world, the informal economy is often found to be the mainstream economy, nevertheless, in the developed world too, informality is currently still estimated to account for notable per cent of GDP. The Informal Economy: Exploring Drivers and Practices intends to engage with these issues, providing a much-need 'contextualised' approach to explain the persistence and growth of forms of informal economic practices and entrepreneurial activities in the twenty-first century. Using a diverse range of empirical case studies from Europe, Africa, North Africa and Asia, this book unpacks the different varieties of forms of informal work and entrepreneurship and provides a critical analysis of existing theorisations used to explain such phenomena. This book's aim is to examine the nature and persistence of informal work and entrepreneurship, across a variety of empirical settings, from within the developed world, the developing world and within transformation economies within post-socialist spaces. Given its worldwide, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach and recent interest in the informal economies by a number of disciplines and organisations, this book will be of vital reading to those operating in the fields of: Economics, political economy and management, Human and economic geography and Economic anthropology and sociology as well as development studies
All businesses strive for excellence in today's technology-based environment in which customers want solutions at the touch of a button. This highly regarded textbook provides in-depth coverage of the principles of operations and supply chain management and explains how to design, implement, and maintain processes for sustainable competitive advantage. This text offers a unique combination of theory and practice with a strategic, results-driven approach. Now in its fourth edition, Operations Management for Business Excellence has been updated to reflect major advances and future trends in supply chain management. A new chapter on advanced supply chain concepts covers novel logistics technology, information systems, customer proximity, sustainability, and the use of multiple sales channels. As a platform for discussion, the exploration of future trends includes self-driving vehicles, automation and robotics, and omnichannel retailing. Features include: A host of international case studies and examples to demonstrate how theory translates to practice, including Airbus, Hewlett Packard, Puma, and Toyota. A consistent structure to aid learning and retention: Each chapter begins with a detailed set of learning objectives and finishes with a chapter summary, a set of discussion questions and a list of key terms. Fully comprehensive with an emphasis on the practical, this textbook should be core reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of operations management and supply chain management. It would also appeal to executives who desire an understanding of how to achieve and maintain 'excellence' in business. Online resources include lecture slides, a glossary, test questions, downloadable figures, and a bonus chapter on project management.
This title was first published in 2000. Since the 1970s there has been widespread debate on the potential of information communication technologies on the organization of work and in particular, the implications of and opportunities engendered through telework and the decentralization of the workplace. However, despite the possible spatial, cultural, social and economic implications, much of the telework debate has been informed by anecdotal examples, journalistic reporting and individual forecasts. This book aims to further the debate by analyzing the scale, nature and experience of telework in the countryside. It examines how and by whom, telework is set up, and what policy and social changes are taking place to facilitate it in rural areas. Individual teleworkers and the organizations using them are questioned to assess whether rural teleworking is proving as advantageous in practice as it is thought to be in theory. Its conclusions suggest that teleworking may not yet be the solution to the many rural problems such as unemployment and depopulation and that businesses and local authorities still need to develop their policies and strategies to allow this type of working to reach its potential.
Through a series of studies, the overarching aim of this book is to investigate if and how the digitalization/digital transformation process causes (or may cause) the autonomy of various labor functions, and its impact in creating (or stymieing) various job opportunities on the labor market. This book also seeks to illuminate what actors/groups are mostly benefited by the digitalization/digital transformation and which actors/groups that are put at risk by it. This book takes its point of departure from a 2016 OECD report that contends that the impact digitalization has on the future of labor is ambiguous, as on the one hand it is suggested that technological change is labor-saving, but on the other hand, it is suggested that digital technologies have not created new jobs on a scale that it replaces old jobs. Another 2018 OECD report indicated that digitalization and automation as such does not pose a real risk of destroying any significant number of jobs for the foreseeable future, although tasks would by and large change significantly. This would affects welfare, as most of its revenue stems from taxation, and particularly so from the taxation on labor (directly or indirectly). For this reason, this book will set out to explore how the future technological and societal advancements impact labor conditions. The book seeks to provide an innovative, enriching and controversial take on how various aspects of the labor market can be (and are) affected the ongoing digitalization trend in a way that is not covered by extant literature. As such, this book intends to cater to a wider readership, from a general audience and students, to specialized professionals and academics wanting to gain a deeper understanding of the possible future developments of the labor market in light of an accelerating digitalization/digital transformation of society at large.
This book, first published in 1986, is concerned with the changing world environment for multinational business and the relationships between multinational parent companies and their subsidiaries which will be necessary to meet the challenges that are being faced. The study argues that key changes to the environment are: the revolution in manufacturing which has permitted cheap production in one location of complicated products for a world market; 'world product mandating', whereby all a company's country subsidiaries produce different product lines for the world market; pressure and incentives from host governments for technology transfer in their favour and for research and development facilities within their territory; the growth of highly efficient international trading and distribution intermediaries; and the complications of increased 'barter' trade arising from international debt problems and currency shortages. All this means that the management of multinational subsidiaries has to change. This book reviews the challenges and shows a way forward. |
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