Learn the lessons of how great companies began in the worst economic times Eli Lilly. IBM. Medtronic, Procter & Gamble. Hewlett-Packard and Marvel Entertainment. All great companies and all made their start during the worst economic times. Innovate!: How Great Companies Get Started in Terrible Times is first and foremost a source of true inspiration based on history. But it goes much further than that. It captures the lessons of these great innovative individuals and companies that began in the worst economic times, identifying the philosohies, strategies, and essential keys to success during your own challenging economic times. Provides a compass to navigate troubled economic waters though innovation Explains the creative sources of innovation possessed by every individual Harnesses the power of innovation of the individual and the organization Innovate!: How Great Companies Get Started in Terrible Times shows you the strides you and your organization can take toward thriving in the worst of times. And it just might be your road map to building the next great American business success story.
This book explores the capacity of the Danish innovation system to respond to key societal challenges including the green imperative of achieving growth with environmental sustainability and the need to adapt to new and possibly disruptive changes in technology, often referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The book is divided into four main parts. The first describes the evolving characteristics of the Danish system of research and innovation with special attention to the role of policy at the national and regional levels. The second part focuses on interorganisational relations, including the position of Danish firms in national and global value chains. The third part examines changes in labour markets and in the educational and training system, and it considers the impact of new technologies including robotics and artificial intelligence on employment and skills. The fourth part turns to issues of climate change and environmental sustainability including an assessment of the Danish economy’s success in meeting the challenges of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The book will be of particular interest to small countries, of which the Danish innovation system is representative, but it also appeals more broadly to an audience interested in innovation systems and policies to support economic development.
Innovation requires more than a eureka moment. The vast majority of new product ideas never make it to market. Typically, this is because of the failure to address a real problem that a customer has experienced and is willing to pay to have solved. What do people and businesses need to know about the realities of innovating in order to develop products successfully? Lorraine Marchand—a seasoned practitioner who has guided Fortune 500 companies and start-ups on developing and launching new ideas—lays out a step-by-step framework for spurring success. She shares her eight laws of innovation, a formula for driving significant and lasting transformation in any organization. Marchand emphasizes the frame of mind needed to spark the innovation process, underscoring the importance of creating a problem-solving culture and supporting personal curiosity, passion, and talent. She pinpoints the strengths shared by the big ideas that break through and debunks the myths that hold back aspiring creators. Drawing on her experience as a woman in a male-dominated field, Marchand discusses how to support entrepreneurship by women and highlights the contributions of underrepresented innovators. Marchand’s how-to program for innovation is clear and easy to follow, featuring a toolkit of strategic templates and planning frameworks that are illustrated by helpful case studies. Written in authoritative but conversational language, The Innovation Mindset offers a practical plan for both the veteran with another great idea and the first-timer with a big dream.
Technology management as a field came together during the 1980s in response to the question of how society could deliberately create new technology and exploit it in economic development. This updated edition introduces technology management, covers the importance of managing information technologies, and compares them to existing physical technologies.
How Nations Innovate compares how affluent capitalist economies differ in their patterns of technological innovation. Building on the 'varieties of capitalism' literature, this book goes beyond the traditional focus on 'radical versus incremental innovation' in existing scholarship, and takes the comparison of capitalism to an entirely new set of questions around technological innovation. For example, which type of capitalism engages in job-threatening innovation? Whose innovation widens income inequality? Whose innovation raises productivity? Which type of capitalism has more effective financial markets for innovation? Whose innovators emphasize 'control' rather than 'flexibility' during innovation? By addressing these questions, the author demonstrates that the way nations innovate often has deep, and sometimes counter-intuitive, implications for how they compare in many areas of socio-economic performance. For example, although venture capital is most active in Anglo-Saxon economies, it seems that venture-capital performance in stimulating innovation is also poorest in precisely these countries. On the issue of employment, the author argues that, whilst technological innovation in Anglo-Saxon economies creates jobs, innovation in European economies destroys jobs. Nations also differ in the nature of income inequality driven by innovation. While innovation pushes top earners further ahead of median earners in Anglo-Saxon economies, it drags bottom earners further behind the median in European economies. Finally, varieties of capitalism also differ in their ability to cope with the volatilities of innovation. While Anglo-Saxon economies face a trade-off between low volatility and high innovation output, these two goals seem jointly achievable in European economies.
How to implement an innovation engine in any organization Innovation is often sought and is in high demand today. At the same time it is often misunderstood and lacks committed sponsorship. Today, most teams at the top need an innovation capability in a manner that works in tandem with their performance/operations management. Packed with actionable ideas, references, links, and resources, Innovation Engine meets that need. Reveals how to develop strategy, road maps, and processes for innovation execution Provides high level implementation guidance on executing innovation, something companies are struggling with globally Explores how today's companies can create a long-term sustainable corporate culture by also using an innovation engine Explains how to use innovation to keep employees engaged and motivated Written for executives, business leaders, CFOs, and CIOs Showing readers how to create a business case for innovation and a supporting innovation linked to business vision and goals, Innovation Engine clearly reveals how to reduce time-to-market, while expanding the "idea landscape" and building a pipeline of corporate innovators.
As sustainable development becomes an increasingly important strategic issue for all organizations, there is a growing need for management and executive education to adapt to this new reality. This textbook provides a theoretically sound and highly relevant introduction to the topic of socially and environmentally responsible business. The authors take a “competence-based approach” to responsible management education. The book aims to go beyond the traditional domains of teaching and towards the facilitation of learning across key competences. Each chapter in this book has a section dedicated to exercises that cover five core competences – know, think, do, relate, be – to enable self-directed transformative learning. Drawing from the classic background theories such as corporate sustainability, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility, these concepts are applied to the most up-to-date practices. The book covers an international perspective, featuring cases from countries all around the world, has a strong theoretical basis, and fully integrates the topics of sustainability, responsibility, and ethics. The book includes a wide variety of tools for change at individual, company, and systemic levels resulting in both an essential resource for business students at all levels and a self-study, practical handbook for executives.
This book highlights the use of an outcome-oriented view of performance to frame and assess the desirability of the effects produced by adopted policies, so to allow governments not only to consider effects in the short, but also the long run. Furthermore, it does not only focus on policy from the perspective of a single unit or institution, but also under an inter-institutional viewpoint. This book features theoretical and empirical research on how public organizations have evolved their performance management systems toward outcome measures that may allow one to better deal with wicked problems. Today, ‘wicked problems’ characterize most of governmental planning involving social issues. These are complex policy problems, underlying high risk and uncertainty, and a high interdependency among variables affecting them. Such problems cannot be clustered within the boundaries of a single organization, or referred to specific administrative levels or ministries. They are characterized by dynamic complexity, involving multi-level, multi-actor and multi-sectoral challenges. In the last decade, a number of countries have started to develop new approaches that may enable to improve cohesion, to effectively deal with wicked problems. The chapters in this book showcase these approaches, which encourage the adoption of more flexible and pervasive governmental systems to overcome such complex problems. Outcome-Based Performance Management in the Public Sector is divided into five parts. Part 1 aims at shedding light on problems and issues implied in the design and implementation of “outcome-based” performance management systems in the public sector. Then Part 2 illustrates the experiences, problems, and evolving trends in three different countries (Scotland, USA, and Italy) towards the adoption of outcome-based performance management systems in the public sector. Such analyses are conducted at both the national and local government levels. The third part of the book frames how outcome-based performance management can enhance public governance and inter-institutional coordination. Part 4 deals with the illustration of challenges and results from different public sector domains. Finally the book concludes in Part 5 as it examines innovative methods and tools that may support decision makers in dealing with the challenges of outcome-based performance management in the public sector. Though the book is specifically focused on a research target, it will also be useful to practitioners and master students in public administration .
The innovation process is the most important of all business processes. Innovation is the means by which value is constructed and efficiencies are created. It is the source of sustainable competitive advantage. This book shows how the innovation process is changing profoundly. Part of the change results from the application of new technologies to the innovation process itself. A new category of technology has emerged which we call 'innovation technology'. This includes simulation and modelling, visualization, and rapid prototyping technologies. When used effectively, innovation technology makes the innovation process more economical and ameliorates some of its uncertainties. These technological changes are accompanied by changing organization structures and skills requirements. The technologies are used in fast moving, creative environments and are suited to project-based organization. They also require the development of new 'craft' skills to realize the possibilities created by the new 'code'. The book outlines a new way of thinking about innovation. Traditional definitions of 'research', 'development' and 'engineering', imply a progressive linearity which doesn't exist in reality. They are also associated with organizational departments, which are breaking down where once they existed, and are in any case non-existent in the vast majority of firms. They also fail to capture the central importance of design in innovation. We propose a new schema for the innovation process: Think, Play, Do. Innovation requires creating new ideas and thinking about new options, playing with them to see if they are practical, economical and marketable, and then doing: making the innovation real. This new schema captures the emerging innovation process using a more contemporary idiom. The book reports in-depth studies from a number of companies and sectors. Major case studies of Procter and Gamble and Arup Partners are presented. It reports on the use of innovation technology in a range of other companies and organizations, from pharmaceuticals in GSK, to engineering design in Ricardo engineering , and welding in TWI. We describe how innovation technology is used in traditional industries, such as in mining, and in public projects, such as the development of London's traffic congestion charge and the stabilization of the leaning tower of Pisa.
