Theory of Innovation


Book Description

The current economic theory of innovation mainly analyses the technology factor and its impact on economic growth. In today's world, growth in information technology and knowledge of new ideas has altered the business paradigm dramatically. Modern economies have undergone a dynamic shift from material manufacturing to a new information technology model with research and development (R&D) and human capital. Through information and communications technology efficient information usage has achieved substantial productivity gains through learning by doing and incremental innovations. The present volume discusses this new paradigm in terms of both theory and industry applications, including Schumpeter in his innovation model and the emphasis on new innovations replacing the old. Growth of business networking and R&D consortium have dramatically helped the modern business to reduce their unit costs and improve efficiency. This volume presents some new models emphasizing knowledge sharing and R&D cooperation. Rapid growth in recent times in some south Asian countries have been cited as growth miracles are largely caused by knowledge spillover and learning by doing, and this volume also investigates the role of incremental innovations. With a strong focus and extension of the current theory of innovation and industry growth experiences of both the US and Asian countries, this book will be of interest to MBA and graduate students in economics, innovation management, and applied industrial economics.




Information Technology and Product Development


Book Description

Information Technology and Product Development: A Research Agenda presents important new research from varied disciplines aimed at developing new theoretical concepts and insights on the application of IT in product and service innovation. Drawing on the work of researchers in such varied management areas as information services, technology management, marketing, operations, business strategy and organizational behavior, the book redefines the role of IT in product and service development and the organizational and management issues underlying the successful deployment of IT in innovation contexts, and provides a foundation for future research on the diverse types of IT applications in product development and their potential impact on both product and service innovation. Reflecting two critical shifts in the service sector – the increased complexity and convergence in products and services, along with the rise of the Internet and rapid digitization of products and services – the book is organized into three sections. Section 1 presents four chapters that focus on the traditional areas of project and process management; Section 2 presents four chapters focusing on the emerging areas of collaborative innovation and knowledge co-creation; and Section 3 presents one chapter that draws it all together and identifies some of the important themes and issues for future research. This important new work has much to offer academic researchers in management in its in-depth theoretical analysis of the wide range of organizational and management issues associated with the application of IT in product and service development. It will also appeal to researchers and thought-leaders in consulting organizations whose primary area of interest is product development or IT applications.




Innovation, Technology, and Market Ecosystems


Book Description

This edited book brings together international insights for raising rich discussion on industrial growth in the twenty-first century with a focus on the Industry 4.0 drive in the global marketplace, which is driven by innovations, technology, and digital drives. It delineates multiple impacts on business-to-business, business-to-consumers, the global-local business imperatives, and on the national economy. The chapters critically analyze the convergence of technology, business practices, public policies, political ideologies, and consumer values for improving business performance in the context of Industry 4.0 developments. This contribution will enrich knowledge on contemporary business strategies towards automation and digitization process in manufacturing, services, and marketing organizations. The discussions across the chapters contemplate developing new visions and business perspectives to match with the changing priorities of industries in the emerging markets.




Managing New Technology Development


Book Description

New technology development starts with the generation of an idea. It ends with that idea's commercial application: a new product or a new service. In Between is a complex sequence of stages demanding specialized management methods. With this in depth survey, R&D, marketing, and engineering managers can learn from the foremost experts about the most successful, proven practices and techniques-for managing all the stages of new technology development.




Product Innovation and Technology Strategy


Book Description

Backed by years of rigorous academic research and industry experience, this book brings together the salient points of effective product innovation, strategic management, and innovation governance. In this book, two of the world's foremost experts, Dr. Robert G. Cooper and Dr. Scott J. Edgett, take you step-by-step through the critical phases of developing your own product innovation strategy - a master plan for your business's entire new product effort. No other business authors give you this kind of uncomplicated narrative, informed by significant industry experience and with examples of outside-the-box thinking. This ist your guide to setting your company up for dominance in the marketplace.




Commercialization of Innovative Technologies


Book Description

This book helps you find innovative new technology ideas and guides you through the complete lifecycle of product innovation, including screening, funding, development, and commercialization. It gives you an edge by enabling you to start off with a solid foundation and strategy. Commercialization of Innovative Technologies focuses on three core areas that set the stage for successful commercialization: Developing and managing a strong, flexible "innovation team" of inventors, investors, technologists, and entrepreneurs; building a portfolio that spreads risk; leveraging input from technologists throughout the commercialization process.




The Management of Technological Innovation


Book Description

The management of technological innovation (MTI) is one of the most important challenges facing businesses today. Innovation has become the fundamental driver of competitiveness for firms of all sizes in virtually all business sectors and nations. The first edition of this book has become one of the most popular texts for students of innovation and technology management. This new edition sees David Gann and Ammon Salter join Mark Dodgson as authors, drawing on their combined experience of 60 years of researching and teaching MTI. It combines the most relevant theoretical analysis with contemporary and historical empirical evidence to provide a comprehensive, yet concise and readable, guide to the challenges of MTI. By explaining the innovation process the book reveals the broad scope of MTI and its importance for company survival, growth and sustainability. It describes how MTI has to be managed strategically and how this is successfully achieved by formulating and implementing strategy and delivering value. Chapters provide frameworks, tools and techniques, and case studies on managing: innovation strategy, communities, and networks, R&D, design and new product and service development, operations and production, and commercialization. Based on robust analysis, the book provides a wide range of empirical evidence from a huge diversity of case studies, with around fifty case studies newly written for this edition. It analyses MTI in all parts of the world, in companies large and small, and in services, manufacturing, and resource-based business sectors. This new edition has been fully revised and updated to reflect the latest teaching and research, and to ensure its continuing relevance to the contemporary world of MTI. It will be an important resource for academics, students, and managers throughout the world, is a recommended text for students of innovation and technology management at postgraduate and undergraduate level, and is particularly valuable for MBA courses.




Technologies and Innovations for Development


Book Description

Technological innovation – combined with scientific research – has always constituted a driving force of transformation in our societies. At the same time, it is no longer simply possible to transfer technologies from the North to the South; it is also essential to consider technical innovations that are adapted to the social, environmental, cultural and economic conditions of receiving countries, and which can be appropriated by their potential users and as such prove to be real technologies for fostering development. The first International Scientific Conference on the topic organized by the UNESCO Chair Technologies for Development at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2010 focused on its four priority sectors: Technologies for Sustainable Development of Habitat and Cities, ICTs for the Environment, Science and Technology for Disaster Risk Reduction, and Technologies for the Production of Sustainable Energy. This volume reflects the main outcomes of the conference and provides some significant orientation and success criteria for the effective implementation and use of innovative technologies, their aims, their particular applications in the context of developing countries, their accessibility for users, and their appropriation by producers and stakeholders in the field of development both in the North and South, thus ensuring their sustainability. This kind of scientific cooperation also highlights the added values for northern researchers in sharing their knowledge and know-how, leading to a real win-win partnership. The authors gathered within this book include representatives from academic and research institutions and other organizations from diverse countries and offer a significant synergy of competences, approaches and disciplines.




Applied Technology and Innovation Management


Book Description

Rapid application of new technologies and highly leveraged innovation processes are key for the success of companies and organizations in dynamic markets. Based on the experiences of one of the industry’s most modern innovation centers this book provides an insight into the tools and methods used to align customer requirements, competitive challenges and technological development. Both, scientists and practitioners, will benefit from the lessons learned and presented in this volume.




Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors


Book Description

The American economy faces two deep problems: expanding innovation and raising the rate of quality job creation. Both have roots in a neglected problem: the resistance of Legacy economic sectors to innovation. While the U.S. has focused its policies on breakthrough innovations to create new economic frontiers like information technology and biotechnology, most of its economy is locked into Legacy sectors defended by technological/ economic/ political/ social paradigms that block competition from disruptive innovations that could challenge their models. Americans like to build technology "covered wagons" and take them "out west" to open new innovation frontiers; we don't head our wagons "back east" to bring innovation to our Legacy sectors. By failing to do so, the economy misses a major opportunity for innovation, which is the bedrock of U.S. competitiveness and its standard of living. Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors uses a new, unifying conceptual framework to identify the shared features underlying structural obstacles to innovation in major Legacy sectors: energy, air and auto transport, the electric power grid, buildings, manufacturing, agriculture, health care delivery and higher education, and develops approaches to understand and transform them. It finds both strengths and obstacles to innovation in the national innovation environments - a new concept that combines the innovation system and the broader innovation context - for a group of Asian and European economies. Manufacturing is a major Legacy sector that presents a particular challenge because it is a critical stage in the innovation process. By increasingly offshoring production, the U.S. is losing important parts of its innovation capacity. "Innovate here, produce here," where the U.S. took all the gains of its strong innovation system at every stage, is being replaced by "innovate here, produce there," which threatens to lead to "produce there, innovate there." To bring innovation to Legacy sectors, authors William Bonvillian and Charles Weiss recommend that policymakers focus on all stages of innovation from research through implementation. They should fill institutional gaps in the innovation system and take measures to address structural obstacles to needed disruptive innovations. In the specific case of advanced manufacturing, the production ecosystem can be recreated to reverse "jobless innovation" and add manufacturing-led innovation to the U.S.'s still-strong, research-oriented innovation system.