This book provides a comprehensive overview of role of entrepreneurship, technology commercialisation and innovation policy for the achievement of economic development and prosperity in African societies. It adopts a broad innovation systems approach. The book examines entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology commercialisation alongside context-specific factors associated with them. It also provides an interdisciplinary perspective, by discussing the above disciplines in a connected way. This book is presented in three distinct parts. It starts by discussing entrepreneurship and the state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa. It then moves on to present technology commercialisation in Africa, before finally discussing the future directions for entrepreneurship, technology commercialisation and innovation policy. This broad picture provided in the book enables the reader to grasp the relevant messages, whilst the detailed analysis applies world-class theories and frameworks to deepen the readers understanding of key concepts and issues examined.

This book presents the characteristics and benefits industrial organizations can reap from the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). These characteristics and benefits include enhanced competitiveness, increased proactive decision-making, improved creativity and innovation, augmented job creation, heightened agility to respond to continuously changing challenges, and intensified data-driven decision making. In a straightforward fashion, the book also helps readers understand complex concepts that are core to IIoT enterprises, such as Big Data, analytic architecture platforms, machine learning (ML) and data science algorithms, and the power of visualization to enrich the domains experts' decision making. The book also guides the reader on how to think about ways to define new business paradigms that the IIoT facilitates, as well how to increase the probability of success in managing analytic projects that are the core engine of decision-making in the IIoT enterprise. The book starts by defining an IIoT enterprise and the framework used to efficiently operate. A description of the concepts of industrial analytics, which is a major engine for decision making in the IIoT enterprise, is provided. It then discusses how data and machine learning (ML) play an important role in increasing the competitiveness of industrial enterprises that operate using the IIoT technology and business concepts. Real world examples of data driven IIoT enterprises and various business models are presented and a discussion on how the use of ML and data science help address complex decision-making problems and generate new job opportunities. The book presents in an easy-to-understand manner how ML algorithms work and operate on data generated in the IIoT enterprise. Useful for any industry professional interested in advanced industrial software applications, including business managers and professionals interested in how data analytics can help industries and to develop innovative business solutions, as well as data and computer scientists who wish to bridge the analytics and computer science fields with the industrial world, and project managers interested in managing advanced analytic projects.

Israeli national neoliberalism has promoted innovation policies leading to an ostensible paradox: At the center is a startup nation with a vibrant and successful high-tech entrepreneurial ecosystem, accumulating resources and enabling constant growth. At the geographical and social periphery, there has emerged a parallel society with often-marginalized groups not able to keep up. In one of the most unequal countries with a high rate of poverty, entrepreneurial heroes are celebrated at the center, promoting a myth that all could be self-made successes. At the periphery, entrepreneurs are struggling to survive, often pushed into precarious working and living conditions. Applying critical theory discourse, this book illustrates how neoliberalism and entrepreneurship are intertwined and how the startup nation has evolved in Israel. It explores how national neoliberal state policies have targeted technological innovation as a tool to obtain a competitive advantage in the international arena rather than aiming at increasing economic achievements and well-being for all. It will demonstrate that the Israeli entrepreneurship scene exemplifies the existence of parallel entrepreneurial societal spaces, analyze the positionality of entrepreneurs belonging to a variety of groups that characterize Israeli society, and uncover structural disadvantages and related levels of precarity as well as existing links between entrepreneurial advantages and disadvantages, mobility and varying degrees of social marginality. Dark Sides of the Startup Nation sheds light onto the problematic and sometimes contradictory myth that entrepreneurship is meritocratic and that neoliberal capitalism provides everyone with equal opportunities to succeed. The book will be of interest to researchers, academics, policy makers and students in the fields of entrepreneurship and small business management, responsibility and business ethics, and technology and innovation.

Transhumanisms and Biotechnologies in Consumer Society offers new, critical perspectives on the impact of 'life-enhancing' technological advancements on consumer identity positions and market evolutions. Technoprogressive innovations that include body modification technologies and reproductive technologies have enabled people to transcend bodily constraints. In parallel, they provoke necessary, critical interrogation around human capabilities, technological possibilities, gender equality, feminism, personal identity, bioethics, markets and morality. The contributions in this book re-evaluate these topics and elucidate some of the vexed relationships between consumers of biotechnologies and markets they consider restrictive or misleading. Secondly, by illustrating consumers' questioning of and resistance to biomedical, market imperatives, they highlight how the notion of consumer sovereignty, consumer influence over markets, has now advanced into novel forms of consumer activism made manifest through contemporary health justice movements. The chapters in this book also uncover profoundly personal consumer accounts on coping with and managing bodies-in-transition, focusing on illness, self-perception, survivorship and the vicissitudes of these corporeal experiences. This book will allow readers to understand how accelerated technological market changes are being experienced and creatively countered at the societal and individual level. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Marketing Management.

This book examines returns on experience and managerial practices to generate deeper collaboration, intensify co-creation, support start-ups and established companies to explore, develop, and accelerate their projects thanks to open labs (living labs, fab labs, coworking spaces, "third spaces", etc.). Open labs are the beatbox to create a rhythm in ecosystems and make all stakeholders move forward, faster, together. This book proposes a framework to understand how open labs, innovation hubs, and collaborative spaces contribute to ecosystems. The book looks beyond the short-term effects of open labs and identifies four main dimensions: communities, physical spaces, events, and portfolios of services offered to private businesses, entrepreneurs, and start-ups, established companies, or public institutions. Drawing on extensive field research lasting over five years, with more than 40 cases and more than 200 interviews plus direct observation within different environments, this edited book investigates how managers run these labs, and how "users" or "clients" evolve when benefitting from their services. All chapters analyse how an actual management impacts the dynamics of communities, how it shapes the co-evolution between open labs and their ecosystems, and how the management of the physical space impacts the mission of the lab and its role in the ecosystem. Open Labs and Innovation Research is written for scholars and researchers in the fields of innovation studies and management science. This book can also inform teaching, public policymaking, and professional practice.

Boasts an impressive author list from multiple disciplinary and geographical backgrounds. Explores a wide range of issues, including economic growth, youth employment, gender, regulatory frameworks, business environments, entrepreneurship, and interest-driven power politics. Adds much-needed perspectives to the debates that shape both Europe's and Africa's digital transformation and innovation environments.

* The book is balanced and comprehensive, recognising that both affordability and investment into innovation are necessary * The book is original, using ecological concepts to understand pharmaceutical innovation as an ecosystem. * The book is unique in its research foundation, building on the views of more than 70 expert informants from all parts of the pharmaceutical innovation ecosystem and all sides of the debate about drug pricing.

* The book is balanced and comprehensive, recognising that both affordability and investment into innovation are necessary * The book is original, using ecological concepts to understand pharmaceutical innovation as an ecosystem. * The book is unique in its research foundation, building on the views of more than 70 expert informants from all parts of the pharmaceutical innovation ecosystem and all sides of the debate about drug pricing.

Although largely unseen, the industrial revolution taking place before us is picking up steam dramatically. Dissolution of traditional global trading partnerships, the effect of COVID-19 on supply chains and the formation of new trading blocks, such as China's Belt and Road initiatives, are creating turmoil and rapid change in the international business domain. Continual advances in technology, health treatments, political and societal change are underpinning these transformations. It is unclear just how this revolution will unfold or what the role of the corporation will be in the long run. This book helps us navigate through these challenging times by identifying areas where opportunities will develop. Written by highly qualified experts from a diverse range of backgrounds, the book takes a novel backcast view to present more critical arguments. The book has been set in the not-so-distant future, reflecting back on the changes that have led to a new type of corporation and the conditions that have led to it. Each chapter presents a complimentary view about the nature of and context for the 2040 Future Corporation. The back casting perspective will provide a very effective discipline for readers to analyse contemporary trends while presenting an integrated and balanced future perspective.

* Presents practical recommendations to motivate and retain Millennials, the largest generation in the US workforce * Backed by a research study with over 11,000 participants, from three generations (Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials) * Explores Millennials' political engagement, cultural diversity, social media use, and views on class conflict, all of which will shed light on a Millennial-led future

Navigating Digital Transformation in Management provides a thorough introduction to the implications of digital transformation for leaders and managers. The book clearly outlines what new or enhanced roles and activities digital transformation requires of them. The book takes a practical approach and shapes an actionable guide that students can take with them into their future careers as managers themselves. With core theoretical grounding, the book explains how the digital transformation imperative requires all organizations to continuously undertake digital business transformation to adapt to ongoing digital disruption and to effectively compete as digital businesses. The book discusses the critical roles managers need to play in establishing, facilitating, and accelerating the day-to-day activities required to build and continuously upgrade these capabilities. Drawing on cutting edge research, this textbook: Explains how digital technology advancements drive digital disruption and why digital business transformation and operating as a digital business are critical to organization survival Unpacks the different digital business capabilities required to effectively compete as a digital business Considers the new or digitally enhanced competencies required of leaders, managers, and their supporting professionals to effectively play their roles in digital transformation Discusses how leaders, managers, and their supporting professionals can keep up with digital technology advancements Unpacks key digital technology advancements, providing a plain language understanding of what they are, how they work, and their implications for organizations Enriched with pedagogical features to support understanding and reinforce learning, such as reflective questions, learning summaries, and case studies, and supported by a suite of instructor materials, this textbook is an ideal choice for teachers that want to enable their information systems, information technology, and digital business students to compete and thrive in the contemporary business environment.

Navigating Digital Transformation in Management provides a thorough introduction to the implications of digital transformation for leaders and managers. The book clearly outlines what new or enhanced roles and activities digital transformation requires of them. The book takes a practical approach and shapes an actionable guide that students can take with them into their future careers as managers themselves. With core theoretical grounding, the book explains how the digital transformation imperative requires all organizations to continuously undertake digital business transformation to adapt to ongoing digital disruption and to effectively compete as digital businesses. The book discusses the critical roles managers need to play in establishing, facilitating, and accelerating the day-to-day activities required to build and continuously upgrade these capabilities. Drawing on cutting edge research, this textbook: Explains how digital technology advancements drive digital disruption and why digital business transformation and operating as a digital business are critical to organization survival Unpacks the different digital business capabilities required to effectively compete as a digital business Considers the new or digitally enhanced competencies required of leaders, managers, and their supporting professionals to effectively play their roles in digital transformation Discusses how leaders, managers, and their supporting professionals can keep up with digital technology advancements Unpacks key digital technology advancements, providing a plain language understanding of what they are, how they work, and their implications for organizations Enriched with pedagogical features to support understanding and reinforce learning, such as reflective questions, learning summaries, and case studies, and supported by a suite of instructor materials, this textbook is an ideal choice for teachers that want to enable their information systems, information technology, and digital business students to compete and thrive in the contemporary business environment.

Social franchising represents a third generation form of franchising development, after trade-name and business-format franchising. At the intersection of social enterprise and micro finance literatures, this book reviews a variety of social franchising formats across a number of developing countries.

Current debates about experts are often polarized and based on mistaken assumptions, with expertise either defended or denigrated. Making Sense of Expertise instead proposes a conceptual framework for the study of expertise in order to facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the role of expertise in contemporary society. Too often different meanings of experts and expertise are implied without making them explicit. Grundmann's approach to expertise is based on a synthesis of approaches that exist in various fields of knowledge. The book aims at dispelling much of the confusion by offering a comprehensive and rigorous framework for the study of expertise. A series of in-depth case studies drawn from contemporary issues, including the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, provide the empirical basis of the author's comprehensive approach. This thought-provoking book will be of great interests to students, instructors and researchers in a range of fields in the humanities, social sciences, and science and technology studies.

Technology is the key driver of business. May it be airport, ICT, smart governance, manufacturing or plantations. Technology management opens up opportunities for the business and help achieve leadership positions. This collection of papers provides a glimpse of issues faced in different sectors. These papers also should inspire more researchers to expand the scope of the subject itself."

In recent years, there has been steady increase in the interest shown in both big data analytics and the use of information technology (IT) solutions to improve healthcare services. Despite the growing interest, there are limited materials, to addressing the needs and challenges posed by the activities and processes including the use of big data. From IT solutions' perspectives, this book aims to advance the deployment and use of big data analytics to increase patients' big data usefulness and improve healthcare service delivery. The book provides significant insights and useful guide on how to access and manage big data, in improving healthcare service delivery. The book contributes a fresh perspective, which primarily comes from the complementary use of analytics approach with actor-network theory (ANT), and other techniques, in advancing healthcare service delivery. Accessing and managing healthcare big data have always been a challenging exercise. Due to the sensitivity of the health sector, the focus on patients' big data is from either technical or social perspective. Thus, the book employs sociotechnical theories, ANT and structuration theory (ST) as lenses to examine and explain the factors that enable and constrain the use of patients' big data for health services. By doing so, the book brings a different dimension and advance health service delivery. Providing a timely and important contribution to this critical area, this book is a valuable, international resource for academics, postgraduate students and researchers in the areas of IT, big data analytics, data management and health informatics.

This book explores the various considerations for achieving an effective regulatory strategy to improve financial access and usage in Nigeria and beyond. Gaps in the legal and institutional framework for digital financial services (DFS) as well as the barriers that contribute to financial exclusion are identified as are the policy changes needed to provide more extensive, accessible and sustainable financial inclusion value. In addition, the book covers divergent themes around the use of and insights for regulating industry financial services providers and challenger entities that herald industry disruption. The book adopts three research methods. The doctrinal research method is used to buttress the law and development analysis and the themes around regulation, adoption and usage of financial services. To elucidate the application of financial innovations, comparative case studies are drawn from selected jurisdictions including Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, The Philippines, Brazil, Mexico, Uganda, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Lastly, using the empirical research method, the author reports the burden experienced by the residents of a community without banks in accessing finance. Included in this discussion are the barriers to finance as well as the coping strategies adopted by the community residents to access formal and informal finance.

Trust and Digital Business: Theory and Practice brings together the theory and practice of trust and digital business. The book offers a look at the current state, including a comprehensive overview of both research and practical applications of trust in business. Readers will gain from this book in the following areas: knowledge across disciplines on trust in business, theoretical underpinnings of trust and how it sustains itself through digital dissemination, and empirically validated practice regarding trust and its related concepts. The international team of authors from seven countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Turkey, and the U.S.) ensures the diversity and quality of the content. The intended audiences of this book are professionals, scholars, and students.

Due to its potential transformative nature, empathy has increasingly received attention in business, psychology, neuroscience, education, medicine, social sciences and design, to mention only a few. During the last two decades, discussions about the role of empathy in design and creative research and practice have developed, with empathy perceived as a key instrument in human-centred design and design thinking. This book revisits the powerful concept of empathy in the new post-pandemic era in which ubiquitous digitalisation presents challenges to retaining human-centredness when developing products and services. The book presents a practical four-step approach to the challenges presented concerning how organisations can turn from merely feeling empathy with or for people, to actions of empathy and compassion that can be implemented with and by communities. A wide range of organisations and organisational settings can benefit from the presented case studies and research methods. Through them, the book explores how to discover, share and act with empathy and compassion in the new digitally driven post-pandemic era to innovate across a wide range of organisations, including for-profit and not-for-profit businesses and those in the public and third sectors. This edited volume will appeal to global researchers in the fields of product and service design and digital, social innovation, as well those interested in organisational development. The practical, interdisciplinary nature of the book and innovative four-step approach will also appeal to upper-level students.

This book investigates the functioning and ecosystems of biorefineries and assesses the potential of the industrial bioeconomy. The authors present a case study of the biorefinery at Bazancourt Pomacle, near Reims, France, as an outstanding illustration of the creation, work processes, financing, provision of environmental services, competitive benefits and future prospects of a bioeconomy. Analysing the case of Bazancourt Pomacle, the authors show the wide range of products produced by integrated biorefineries such as food, bioenergy, molecules for cosmetics and nutrients for agricultural use. They also analyse Bazancourt Pomacle as an open innovation platform, which encompasses several layers of R&D, including three department chairs from leading engineering and business schools in France. Illustrating a number of global success stories that started in Bazancourt Pomacle, the authors also investigate the provision of pilot- and demonstration plants as inescapable steps in the scaling-up process from the lab to industrial scale. The book provides a systematic overview of the lessons learned, as well as data on an industrial bioeconomy. Investors, decision- makers, public-policy shapers, analysts and scholars will learn about the history, actors, economics, industrial symbiosis, role of cooperatives, R&D and future prospects of a world-class biorefinery and bio-based cluster in Europe.

The goal of this book is to provide a comprehensive, multi-dimensional approach to research and practice in e-government 2.0 implementation. Contributions from an international panel of experts apply a variety of methodological approaches and illustrative case studies to present state-of-the-art analysis and perspectives.

Around the world, governments are employing technological advancements to revolutionize their ways of working, resulting in changing relationships among public organizations and their constituents. Important enablers are new uses of information and knowledge-sharing technologies that emerged with the advent of the Web 2.0 paradigm; initially used in the private arena, such user-friendly, participatory, intuitive and flexible Web 2.0 technologies (e.g., blogs, Wikis, RSS, social networking platforms, folksonomy, podcasting, mashups, virtual worlds, open linked data, etc.) are increasingly disseminated within the professional sphere, regardless of organization type or field of activities.

Current e-government environments have undergone considerable transformations in an attempt to satisfy the incessant demand for more advanced e-service delivery, better access to information and more efficient government management. Looking to the future, the emergence of Web 2.0, the rise of social networks and the wider dissemination of data and information are expected to generate many benefits, such as a better match between public services and citizens' expectations, greater adoption of online services by citizens and better control of costs and prevention of delays in the implementation of new services. Governments around the world are building frameworks and proposals for e-government 2.0, in the hopes of improving participation, transparency and integration, while speeding up the pace of innovation through collaboration and consultation.This volume addresses a gap in the research literature, offering timely insights on the e-government 2.0 phenomenon and directions for future practice and policy.

This book is part of the Human Centered Book Trilogy, the 2021 volumes of the Routledge Human Centered Management HCM Series. HCM books are pioneering transformation from the traditional humans-as-a-resource approach of the industrial past, to the humans at the center management and organizational paradigm of the 21st century. HCM is built on the talent and wellbeing of people in the workplace driving work engagement, quality standards, high performance and productivity to attain long-term organizational sustainability in the global VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) environment. This book was carefully crafted by recognized international human centered scholars from four continents. Models presented bridge persistent Soft Skills gaps in management and business and particularly between education and the workforce due to excessive testing and hard/technical skills. In contrast with hard skills, Soft Skills are transferable across jobs, industries and applicable to all dimensions of life. Soft Skills are the common language of empathy, collaboration, team building, resilience and agility transforming organizations. Human and social challenges cannot be solved only with hard skills. This is a "must read Soft Skills manual" for survival and success based on attributes all human beings possess but not everybody is optimizing to excel in life and work. This and its two complementary titles Human Centered Organizational Culture: Global Dimensions and Sensible Leadership: Human Centered, Insightful and Prudent are timely readings for leaders, managers, researchers, academics, practitioners, students and the general public responsible for organizations across industries and sectors pursuing quality standards, organizational transformation and sustainability.

The aftermath of the 2008 crisis has substantially increased the regulation of banks and insurance companies and curtailed their risk taking, which has shifted much of the risk to their clients: firms and consumers. At the same time, digitalization has encouraged the entry of new firms combining finance and technological innovation, a phenomenon known as FinTech. The emergence of non-bank financial entities has contributed to the fragmentation of financial services, and also opened up new markets. Furthermore, the growing emphasis on corporate social responsibility has made it increasingly important for financial organizations to care about their public image. Drawing together these diverse strands, this book examines how the financial sector is evolving and how the existing actors are adapting to the institutional change and to the challenges from new actors and competitors. It also addresses the issue of how financial organizations are providing fixes to the challenges at the systemic level and how a healthier, more diverse and socially responsible financial sector is beneficial to the operations of the market economy as a whole. While there are books that address each of these issues, and also books that look at organizational diversity, there are few that investigate their interconnectedness. Responsible Finance and Digitalization offers a topical overview of the changes that are taking place in the financial sector and how the financial sector itself can contribute to solving global challenges. It equips both students (at MBA and other levels) and practitioners with analytical tools to reflect on this change and to take appropriate action to ensure that their organization can successfully navigate it and create value.

In contemporary global capitalism, the most powerful corporations are innovation or intellectual monopolies. The book's unique perspective focuses on how private ownership and control of knowledge and data have become a major source of rent and power. The author explains how at the one pole, these corporations concentrate income, property and power in the United States, China, and in a handful of intellectual monopolies, particularly from digital and pharmaceutical industries, while at the other pole developing countries are left further behind. The book includes detailed empirical mappings of how intellectual monopolies develop and transform knowledge from universities and open-source collaborations into intangible assets. The result is a strategy that combines undermining the commons through privatization with harvesting from the same commons. The book ends with provoking reflections to tilt the scale against intellectual monopoly capitalism and arguing that desired changes require democratic mobilization of workers and citizens at large. This book represents one of the first attempts to capture the contours of an emerging new era where old perspectives lead us astray, and the old policy toolbox is hopelessly inadequate. This is true for the idea that the best, or only, way to promote innovation is to transform knowledge into private property. It is also true for anti-trust policies focusing exclusively on consumer prices. The formation of global infrastructures that lead to natural monopolies calls for public rather than private ownership. Scholars and professionals from the social sciences and humanities (in particular economics, sociology, political science, geography, educational science and science and technology studies) will enjoy a clear and all-embracing depiction of innovation dynamics in contemporary capitalism, with a particular focus on asymmetries between actors, regions and topics. In fact, its topical issue broadens the book's scope to those curious about how innovation networks shape our world.

Power and Authority in Internet Governance investigates the hotly contested role of the state in today's digital society. The book asks: Is the state "back" in internet regulation? If so, what forms are state involvement taking, and with what consequences for the future? The volume includes case studies from across the world and addresses a wide range of issues regarding internet infrastructure, data and content. The book pushes the debate beyond a simplistic dichotomy between liberalism and authoritarianism in order to consider also greater state involvement based on values of democracy and human rights. Seeing internet governance as a complex arena where power is contested among diverse non-state and state actors across local, national, regional and global scales, the book offers a critical and nuanced discussion of how the internet is governed - and how it should be governed. Power and Authority in Internet Governance provides an important resource for researchers across international relations, global governance, science and technology studies and law as well as policymakers and analysts concerned with regulating the global internet.