![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Business & Economics > Business & management > Management of specific areas > Research & development management
Digitalization is on everyone's lips as new technology changes business landscapes and conventional companies are outperformed by younger digital and agile contestants. In this volatile environment it seems more relevant than ever before to understand the aspects and business logic behind the elusive phenomenon called "digitalization". Never before have there been such great opportunities to unleash the full potential of technology within organizations to create long-standing competitive advantage. This book explains the strategy and practice of how to lead and control the people side of digital change in a dynamic world of uncertainty and social complexity, and as such the book snares the elusive phenomena of digitalization Digitalization drives behavioral change and calls for a new way of thinking among senior executives. In practice, reaping the benefits of digital technology is not as easy as it first appears to be. This book provides a map to navigate in the volatile business landscape where change occurs continuously because of digital technology. It provides an historical frame of the evolution of digital technology, decodes digitalization's negative influence on the external aspects of customer satisfaction, discusses and explains the strategic and leadership consequences of different forms of digital change, and finally demonstrates how leading digital change can be put into practice. Illustrative case studies and examples are provided throughout as well as models and frameworks. This is a valuable resource for researchers, academics, and students in the fields of organizational studies, organizational change, technology and innovation management, and digitalization.
Davanti Nella Gara, an Italian bicycle company, makes the best racing bikes in the world. But after decades of market dominance, competitors have brought the industry leader back to the Peloton. The company's second-generation owner longs for retirement, but a tired product lineup is pushing down profits and the firm's market value will never support his ride into the sunset. The flawed but beloved owner seeks out the counsel of an old friend and successful businessman, who steers him toward a fast and remarkable transformation, one fueled by a relentless focus on innovation excellence. An engaging business novel, Winning Innovation dives into the art and science of innovation; the thrills of the European bike-racing circuit; the vibrant landscape and cuisine of Italy; and a cast of intriguing characters who work to put Davanti on the road to sustained prosperity. The company's leader isn't afraid to learn and apply new ideas to reenergize his company, and finds he cares more about his employees than he could ever imagine. A young innovator struggles to see a product idea to fruition as well as rise into management - and he falls in love along the way. A newly promoted R&D director brings teamwork and transparency to product development and aligns the entire company around innovation. With the help of a seasoned and persistent change agent, in just a year, Davanti deploys a well-defined and -sequenced transformation - a complete and seamless process that can be replicated and scaled by most companies. The leader engages associates in pursuit of the right vision and strategy, candidly supporting them all as they unleash their creative sparks, work through personality conflicts, and take on real-world challenges faced by companies every day. They learn and apply traditional R&D principles in new ways (e.g., cost of delay, sprints, fail fast, late start) and successfully leverage emerging innovation and change-management principles (e.g., idea-creation events, knowledge management, workplace humility, visual management, lean project management). And an aligned, three-phase innovation process - from idea creation to technology development and product design - provides the innovation infrastructure the company needs for revenue creation and success beyond racing bikes. From a top-heavy organization dominated by power struggles and finger-pointing emerges a new Davanti Nella Gara - a flattened, innovative company with: Clear vision and endorsed goals and strategy Speed, responsiveness, and agility Widespread, successful creativity Collaboration and teamwork Superior risk management Respect for people Unquestionable ethics Changed leadership and associate behaviors Project management excellence Rapid problem-solving and experimentation Not just the story of an R&D transformation, Winning Innovation illustrates a companywide transformation of a magnitude that only superior R&D can make possible. It may well be the first book to chronologically introduce the principles for a complete innovation excellence transformation along with the parallel people transformation that is necessary for real change to occur. The end result for Davanti Nella Gara is a dominant new culture based on respect and humility, highly efficient processes that will deliver a wealth of innovations, sales, and profits for many years to come, and an owner who leaves a bright future for the people and company he's known and loved his entire life.
This Handbook provides authoritative up-to-date scholarship and debate concerning creativity at work, and offers a timely opportunity to re-evaluate our understanding of creativity, work, and the pivotal relationship between them. Far from being a new arrival on the scene, the context of work has always been a place shaped and sharpened by creativity, as well as a site that determines, where, when, how, and for whom creativity emerges. Structured in four parts - Working with Creativity (the present); Putting Creativity to Work (in an organizational context); Working in the Creative Industries (creative labour); and Making Creativity Work (the future) - the Handbook is an inspirational learning resource, helping us to work with creativity in innovative ways. Providing a cutting edge, interdisciplinary, diverse, and critical collection of academic and practitioner insights, this Handbook ultimately conveys a message of hope: if we take better care of creativity, our creativity will better care for us.
This book examines how regulators and policymakers from nine different countries have dealt with Uber, and initiates a legal dialogue between different jurisdictions that could potentially pave the way to a harmonized approach in regulating Uber. The case studies, conducted in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the US reveal the case law and regulatory responses that have been adopted in various areas of law. Legal issues relevant to Uber include market regulation, labor law, civil liability, consumer protection, unfair competition and antitrust law. The book thus compares and contrasts the regulatory policy implications of the disruptive innovation created by Uber in the area of transport services. The book starts with a conceptual overview of the legal challenges posed by Uber and concludes with comparative findings based on the individual case studies. In addition to introducing academics and legal practitioners to the theoretical and practical legal problems they may encounter in connection with Uber, the book will especially appeal to policymakers, who can benefit from and compare the experiences of other jurisdictions.
Management and the Sustainability Paradox is about how humans became disconnected from their ecological environment throughout evolutionary history. Begining with the premise that people have competing innate, natural drives linked to survival. Survival can be thought of in the context of long-term genetic propagation of a species, but at the same time, it involves overcoming of immediate adversities. Due to a diverse set of survival challenges facing our ancestors, natural selection often favored short-term solutions, which by consequence, muted the motivations associated with longer-range sustainability values. Managerial decisions and choices mostly adopt a moral calculus of costs versus benefits. Managers invoke economic and corporate growth to justify virtually any action. It is this moral calculus underlying corporate behavior that needs critical examination and reformation. At the heart of it lie deep moral questions that we examine in this book, with the goal of proposing ethical solutions to the paradox. Management and the Sustainability Paradox examines the issue that there appears to be an inherent paradox between what some businesses view as "a need for progress" and " a concern for sustainability". In business, we often see a collision between ideas of progress and sustainability which shapes corporate actions, and managerial decisions. Typical corporate views of progress involve the creation of wealth, jobs, innovative products, and social philanthropic projects. On the basis of these "progressive" actions they justify their inequitable distribution of surpluses by paying low wages and exploiting ecological resources. It is not difficult to see the antagonistic interplay between technological and social innovation with our values for social and environmental well-being and a dualism that needs to be overcome. This book is intended for a broad appeal to an academic and policy maker audience in the sustainability and management fields. The book will be of vital reading for managers seeking to reconnect our human chain with the natural environment in the cause of sustainable business.
This book sets new trajectories for language-sensitive business and management research and pedagogy. The existence of language plurality characterises these. Empirical studies have been established as important and relevant for contemporary research. It has shifted language-sensitive research from the periphery to the centre of international management research. However, this field is rapidly changing, and new thematic approaches have begun to emerge. By addressing this, the book offers genuine and more nuanced insights into existing themes and comes with applications of emergent conceptual developments in different settings. The second part of the book covers methodologies and gives examples and cutting-edge insights into the role of translation in the execution of empirical research and theorising arising from it. Finally, the book draws together innovative ways of how to address the challenges of a multilingual teaching classroom and how to innovate in order to incorporate such diversity through pedagogic practice. This book provides a source that unites insights from multilingual empirical research, methodological considerations and pedagogic practice in order to advance knowledge and debate. It will be a 'handy source' of information that offers direct access to the latest guidance on language-sensitive management challenges. It will, therefore, appeal to an internationally-minded and mobile audience, including scholars, students and decision-makers.
The book assists in bringing together the three stakeholders of an innovation - inventor, decision maker and organization. These stakeholders have conflicting requirements and the book offers advice on how and by what methods they can communicate and the information that is expected and required in different phases of innovation. The perspectives of inventor, decision maker and organization are integrated in a business model that enables a common "language" and communication platform for the inevitably emerging tension field and that allows for asking and answering the right questions.
Innovation offers potential: to cure diseases, to better connect people, and to make the way we live and work more efficient and enjoyable. At the same time, innovation can fuel inequality, decimate livelihoods, and harm mental health. This book contends that inclusive innovation - innovation motivated by environmental and social aims - is able to uplift the benefits of innovation while reducing its harms. The book provides accessible engagement with inclusive innovation happening at the grassroots level through to policy arenas, with a focus on the South-East Asian region. Focusing on fundamental questions underpinning innovation, in terms of how, what and where, it argues that inclusive innovation has social processes and low-tech solutions as essential means of driving innovation, and that environmental concerns must be considered alongside societal aims. The book's understanding of inclusive innovation posits that marginalized or underrepresented innovators are empowered to include themselves by solving a problem that they are experiencing. The first in-depth exploration of efforts underway to assuage inequality from policy, private sector, and grassroots perspectives, this book will interest researchers in the areas of innovation studies, political economy, and development studies. Chapters 1 and 5 of this book are available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Cooperation between science and business (S2B cooperation) is a very important issue from the points of view of the domestic economy, companies, and universities. This is mainly because such cooperation is a catalyst for faster and reliable development - not only of enterprises, but also of the entire economy. Thanks to S2B cooperation, enterprises can gain and commercialize new and ground-breaking solutions. Universities in turn can give their research a more practical dimension to increase its economic applicability, which helps universities prepare future staff to work in modern enterprises. The aim of this publication is to indicate how cooperation between universities and business can be implemented in an international dimension. It shows the role of modern universities in supporting the development of enterprise and entire economies as well as the role of modern enterprises that use resources located in universities (including knowledge resources). This unique combination has a positive impact on the results and developmental opportunities for each of them. Any potential obtained in this manner is the basis for creating a competitive advantage on the market. This book is devoted to a specific area of cooperation between enterprises and universities and will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of entrepreneurship, knowledge management, international relations, and higher education.
Unpredictable and unforeseen, or black swan, events are occurring increasingly often, one such recent example is the coronavirus crisis of 2020. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, with its growing use of artificial intelligence, intelligent robots, intelligent informats and intelligent algorithms, may help us to confront these incidents but only if we can avoid the sector optimization logic of some forms of economic thinking. This book offers a multi-faceted presentation of the application of systemic thinking in non-standard situations, especially those created by the fourth industrial revolution. It develops models and mini theories to promote systemic thinking at a time when cascades of innovations are entering the economy, while at the same time black swan events are occurring and disrupting social systems. It takes a critical look at how organizations and social systems have chosen to organize themselves to develop systems that prioritize high performance, by focusing on cost-cutting and maximizing profits, instead of on preparedness elasticity and resource slack. The consequences of this kind of organizational streamlining becomes evident only when the 'black swans' loom. The author discusses how individuals and society can develop the resilience needed to deal with these incidents. He asserts that there are three central social mechanisms that can help us understand how social systems work and how they are interconnected: time-lag, threshold value, and feedback. These three concepts can help us to understand how changes occur in non-linear systems; for instance, how small changes at the micro level can lead to large changes at the macro level. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics and students in the fields of economics, finance, business and industry.
Currently, businesses are forced to be more innovative than ever before. Organizations must be sensitive to global trends -- such as digitization, globalization, and automation -- and at the same time build resilience and flexibility to combat unexpected changes in customer demand. The coronavirus pandemic is just the most recent and pronounced example of this new-normal business necessity. Amidst the disruption, many businesses are caught not knowing how to proceed. How ought one pursue or achieve innovation for the company? Are there different innovation strategies? Why might a business leader choose one over the other? The Lean Innovation Cycle addresses these concerns by introducing a new multidisciplinary framework for both thinking about and pursing innovation. By taking key concepts from the quality management practices of Lean and Six Sigma, the framework augments these tools and disciplines by incorporating other problem-solving and design techniques, including Human-Centered Design. The result is a view of innovation that many business leaders will find fits nicely into their existing paradigm of strategy and operational discipline. After the introduction of the framework, the book turns to understanding the differences, advantages, and tradeoffs in pursuing Lean Innovation in lieu of traditional, technologically driven innovation approaches. To this end, the book considers issues of sustainability, organizational strategy, and competitive advantage. The result is a thought-provoking dialogue that informs the reader about the key considerations of how best to pursue innovation within their business and the business environment, as well as the circumstances that might make one innovation strategy more congruent to an organization's culture, goals, and objectives than the other.
This proceedings volume examines individual city transports, transport companies and entire transport systems. Featuring select contributions presented at the 2018 TranSopot Conference in Sopot, Poland, this book provides an analysis of transportation solutions both at the micro-level (single city or single company) as well as the macro-level (whole transportation systems). The enclosed research and case studies provide a theoretical background for transport analysis but also new innovative and sustainable solutions to transportation while also increasing the efficiency of transport operations. Transportation is a very specific area of social and economic life. It creates countless opportunities and fulfills the need for mobility while also generating significant cost-direct for the company or indirect to societies. Planning and organizing transport is a task which requires a multi-level approach with a focus on operational, ecological and financial aspects. At a time in which many transport systems are unable to grow extensively due to lack of space or increased cost, these activities are even more crucial. The enclosed research from researchers, scholars and practitioners provides not only new theories but also empirical data and practical experience. The TranSopot 2018 conference is a continuation of a long series of conferences devoted to the topic of transport sector development. The goal of the conference is to exchange current trends and spread the results of current research into the fields of transport growth, development and management.
Drawing on a range of European cases, this edited volume analyses the offshoring and outsourcing of foreign companies, with a focus on territorial embeddedness. The book opens by developing a theoretical framework and then presents a range of international case studies exploring the experiences of the service hub cities of Brno, Bratislava, Budapest, Krakow, and Prague. Attention is also given to internal and external determinants of embeddedness, with chapters on the employee perspective, the Fintech industry, corporate social responsibility, and the role of universities. This volume will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in regional economics, economic geography, innovation studies, industrial economics, European economics, and international business.
Uses practical business cases in regional Australia to illustrate opportunities and challenges confronting businesses in non metropolitan regions
When a $145 million IT project failure pushes Los Angeles to the edge of financial meltdown, the County CEO asks Max McLellan, a harried IT project manager, aka The Integrator, for help. The County Board gives Max 30 days to identify the problem and find a solution. At first Max finds the usual missteps, but something bigger and darker beckons, an explosive source of project failure. He must do something different, rattling ghosts of previous County IT failures, uncloaking crookedness, and exposing truths that shatter careers. With some people rooting for his failure, Max battles to fit all the pieces together with the County team, applying his proven framework to define the problem, plan a solution and execute it successfully. It's common knowledge that barely 50% of IT projects succeed, per a 2017 Project Management Institute report. Equally well-known, approximately 70% of large-scale change management initiatives fail according to a 2017 McKinsey & Co. report. Given the challenge to overcome these low success rates, The Integrator offers a proven narrative on the organizational change framework for achieving Agile IT project management success based on the author's 45+ year client experiences and published research. The Integrator defines change management as the single overarching methodology integrating Agile IT and project management. It does this because all projects are about change - significant organizational and personal change. The people involved - their participation in and understanding and support of these changes - ultimately determine IT projects success or failure. In fact, while all IT projects are about change, successful projects change human behavior. The methodologies included in the framework, described in The Integrator, include: * Change management as defined by AIM (Accelerating Implementation Methodology). * Project management as defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI) Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) standard. * IT management as derived from the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEEE) Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) standard. * Agile as defined by the Agile Alliance's Agile Manifesto. Written by a certified Project Management Professional and accredited change management practitioner, The Integrator chronicles the challenges involved in applying this framework in a real-world setting to achieve successful project implementation.
Uses practical business cases in regional Australia to illustrate opportunities and challenges confronting businesses in non metropolitan regions
* The concepts of Swarm Facilitation and Swarm Leadership are gaining strong interest in the professional arena. This book is the first to provide a useful action-oriented overview for busy professionals. * Both concise and thorough, the book provides an ideal overview of the approaches and tools for the different stages of implementation. * Written by a leading practitioner in the field, no other title in this area combines expertise and depth with practical help.
This book analyses prevailing approaches and policies in innovative entrepreneurship. It explores the ways in which entrepreneurs learn and develop innovation-based businesses to drive increased regional competitiveness. Specifically, the contributions propose that sustainable innovation ecosystems booster innovative entrepreneurship and thus create a competitive advantage for smart and sustainable growth. It also examines the current state of entrepreneurship education, where the development of entrepreneurial abilities is considered a process of value creation-both economic and social-with the final aim to create both new start-ups and entrepreneurial mind-sets.Featuring theoretical approaches and empirical evidences, this title is appropriate for scholars, academics, students and policy makers in technology and innovation management, economics of innovation and entrepreneurship.
This book examines the problem of the innovation divide in the world economy, and convergence in innovation performance between leaders and followers, analysed through the prism of Chinese experiences, and explored from an European Union (EU) perspective. The rationale for research conducted in this book is an observation of a significant change in the geography of world innovation, reflected in the emergence of innovation hubs in developing countries and in the shift of manufacturing activity, including high and medium-high technology industries, to emerging economies, mainly China. The book analyses the factors of Chinese innovation success in recent decades, such as: China's science, technology and innovation policy, increased R&D expenditures, human capital development and the development of clusters and highly specialized industries. It also focuses on the challenges for developed European economies, which are being at risk of losing their knowledge-related sources of competitive advantage. It also offers recommendations for future policy actions. The book's analysis goes beyond a cross-country comparison, taking into account a regional perspective. The reason for this regional dimension is the increasingly recognized importance of proximity in stimulating innovation processes, and an observed strong geographical polarization of innovation activity at specific regions seen in the emergence of clusters, particularly visible in China. The monograph will provide an up-to-date reference for academics and students across a variety of disciplines. It will be of particular interest to researchers in the area of innovation and practitioners doing business in China, as well as policymakers at international, national and regional levels involved in designing and implementing innovation policy.
The study of universities' role in regional engagement has traditionally been focusing on exceptional cases. This book presents a reconceptualization which embraces its underlying complexity and proposes a roadmap for a renewed research agenda. Starting from the grassroots level of universities' "everyday" engagements, the book delves into the manifold ways in which university knowledge agents build connections with regional partners. Through 11 empirical chapters, the authors not only chart the diversity among case institutions, engagement mechanisms, and regional contexts but also use that diversity to advance a novel conceptual framework, centered on the process of mundaneness, for unpacking university-regions' everyday activities, taking into account the dynamic, complex, and co-evolving interplay between (a) key social agents and institutions, (b) the contexts in which they are embedded, as well as (c) the historical trajectories and strategic ambitions underpinning context-specific social arrangements and interactions that are mediated by temporal and spatial dimensions. Drawing on evolutionary economic geography, innovation studies, management and organization studies, and historical perspectives, the volume advances a new mode of understanding university-regional engagement as a form of extendable temporary coupling, which also helps to address perennial policy and managerial questions alike of what to do with universities that do not serve local labour market needs and/or are located in regions suffering from brain drain. The book illustrates such dynamics from diverse national contexts and three continents: Brazil, Caribbean, China, Italy, Norway, and Poland. This book will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers, and policymakers working in economic geography, regional development, innovation, and higher education management. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Digitalisation and Organisation Design aims to address key topics related to organisation design and knowledge management in the digital economy with organisational context, particularly in Asia. Asian nations are moving fast toward the digital economy. Doing business in the digital economy is different from the old way, and the role of organisation design and knowledge management is crucial to support innovative and creative ideas for tapping the huge market opportunities in which people are ready for digitalisation. Chapters in the book cover important topics related to organisation design and knowledge management for organisations, especially business organisations in Asia, to prepare and cultivate necessary means for advancing in the digital economy. This book offers readers a unique value, bringing new perspectives to understanding emerging business opportunities and challenges in Asia. It will present a valuable collection of chapters with empirical studies from leading researchers on the related topic within the main theme (Asian economies, digitalisation, knowledge management, organisational design). The collection of chapters will be conceptually and practically beneficial for academics, students and policy makers interested in the latest developments in organisation design and knowledge management in the digital economy in Asia. This book can be used as a main or supplementary resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students in business and related areas.
This book addresses key topics related to organization design and knowledge management in the digital economy with organizational context, particularly in Asia. Asian nations are moving fast toward the digital economy, within which the role of organization design and knowledge management is crucial to support innovative and creative ideas for meeting huge market opportunities where customers are ready for digitalization. The book conceptualizes organization design into three dimensions, people, information, and technology, and offers readers a unique valued insight, bringing new perspectives to understanding emerging business opportunities and challenges in Asia. It presents a valuable collection of 14 chapters with empirical studies from leading researchers. The book addresses digital transformation in companies and organizations in Asia, analysing how disruptive technologies can help them have more efficient organization processes, create innovative products and services, be more resilient and achieve sustainable goals in the post-pandemic time. It fills a gap in the market offering a valuable collection of chapters that combines strategic topics for companies, organizations and nations today, such as digital economy, disruptive technologies, big data and knowledge management, with a specific focus on the Asian region, providing rich examples and studies focused in countries and regions within Asia. Written for scholars, researchers and other specialists in digitalization, this book offers a unique collection of insights into the current and future situation in Asia.
The forces of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) in today's world are shaping businesses and calling into question the wisdom of existing business models. VUCA challenges businesses to digitalize and transform in ways they had not contemplated before. This book looks at how successful businesses have revitalized and innovated their business models. It illustrates through cases how these businesses have adapted to new forms of globalization through the lens of Business Model Innovation (BMI) theories in a digital world. This book's chapters are divided into three sections. The first section examines the existing literature, the second section focuses on business processes and behaviour, and lastly the third section presents four case studies of sustainable international businesses from sectors such the fashion and digital services industry. Paying attention to business decisions and outcomes, the contributors critically examine which theories and practices would be most applicable for a digitally transforming world. This book provides insights that will interest researchers and academics in the fields of sustainable business, organizational change, and digital transformation, amongst others. Its observations into sustainable digital transformation may also interest business leaders and consultants.
* The concepts of Swarm Facilitation and Swarm Leadership are gaining strong interest in the professional arena. This book is the first to provide a useful action-oriented overview for busy professionals. * Both concise and thorough, the book provides an ideal overview of the approaches and tools for the different stages of implementation. * Written by a leading practitioner in the field, no other title in this area combines expertise and depth with practical help.
With digital automation becoming ubiquitous, the relationship between man and machine is being redefined. This book, through a focus on America, identifies the tension this relationship has produced, and how it has divided America socially, politically, and economically, ultimately breeding two fundamentally incompatible nations within one: the "forgotten America" and "elite America." This book enables the reader to visualize the changes brought by automation on our producer and buyer identities, and suggests policy changes that global leaders could adopt to deal with the increasing discord. The book is heavily dependent on a few fundamental concepts of both economics and sociology, such as globalization, labor economics, and cultural homogenization. The book is ideally suited to students and academics researching political economics and sociology, with focuses on globalization, unemployment, and the social impacts of technological advances. |
You may like...
One Life - Short Stories
Joanne Hichens, Karina M. Szczurek
Paperback
|