In Reducing Toxics, leading experts address industry, technology, health, and policy issues and explore the potential for pollution prevention at the industry and facility levels. They consider both the regulatory and institutional settings of toxics reduction initiatives, prescribe strategies for developing a prevention framework, and apply these principles in analyzing industry case studies. Among the topics considered are: the evolution of, and limits to, current environmental policy incorporating prevention into production planning and decisionmaking do voluntary programs lead to industry greening or greenwashing? case studies of the chemical, aerosols, radiator repair and electric vehicle industries opportunities for and barriers to pollution prevention Reducing Toxics offers an analytic framework for defining and understanding different approaches in the toxics area and describes the basis for a new policy and industrial decisionmaking construct.
Embracing Ambiguity fills a tremendous need in today’s chaotic marketplace by providing a timely, impactful, and relevant self-directed training program designed to enhance the essential skills employees need to embrace today’s ambiguity. By engaging in self-directed learning employees will increase their self-awareness, further their sense of the world around them, and reflect on the intersection of the two. Required reading for individuals from small-to-medium sized businesses, large corporations, non-profit organizations, and government offices, Embracing Ambiguity offers employers and employees alike a valuable resource to use as they chart a course forward in a post-pandemic marketplace.
How America's individual inventors persisted alongside corporate R&D labs as an important source of inventions. During the nineteenth century, heroic individual inventors such as Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell created entirely new industries while achieving widespread fame. However, by 1927, a New York Times editorial suggested that teams of corporate scientists at General Electric, AT&T, and DuPont had replaced the solitary "garret inventor" as the wellspring of invention. But these inventors never disappeared. In this book, Eric Hintz argues that lesser-known inventors such as Chester Carlson (Xerox photocopier), Samuel Ruben (Duracell batteries), and Earl Tupper (Tupperware) continued to develop important technologies throughout the twentieth century. Moreover, Hintz explains how independent inventors gradually fell from public view as corporate brands increasingly became associated with high-tech innovation. Focusing on the years from 1890 to 1950, Hintz documents how American independent inventors competed (and sometimes partnered) with their corporate rivals, adopted a variety of flexible commercialization strategies, established a series of short-lived professional groups, lobbied for fairer patent laws, and mobilized for two world wars. After 1950, the experiences of independent inventors generally mirrored the patterns of their predecessors, and they continued to be overshadowed during corporate R&D's postwar golden age. The independents enjoyed a resurgence, however, at the turn of the twenty-first century, as Apple's Steve Jobs and Shark Tank's Lori Greiner heralded a new generation of heroic inventor-entrepreneurs. By recovering the stories of a group once considered extinct, Hintz shows that independent inventors have long been—and remain—an important source of new technologies.
The U.S. economy is the envy of the world, and the key to its success is technological innovation. In this fascinating and in-depth account reported from three continents, Robert Buderi turns the spotlight on corporate research and the management of innovation that is helping drive the economy's robust growth. Here are firsthand communiqués from inside the labs of a reborn IBM, resurgent GE and Lucent, research upstarts Intel and Microsoft, and other leading American firms -- as well as top European and Japanese competitors. It was only a few years ago that competitiveness experts -- U.S. well-wishers and naysayers alike -- concluded that America had lost its business and technological edge. The nation's companies, they asserted, couldn't match the development and manufacturing efficiency of overseas rivals. Yet now the nation is humming along, riding an unparalleled wave of innovation. Buderi tells us this turnaround has come on many fronts -- in marketing, sales, manufacturing, and the creation of start-up companies. But Engines of Tomorrow deals with a central element that has gone largely unexamined: corporate research. It's the research process that provides the technologies that spur growth. Research is behind the renaissance of IBM, the stunning growth of Lucent, and much of the steamrolling American recovery. Focusing on the fast-moving communications-computer-electronics sector, Buderi profiles some of the world's leading thinkers on innovation, talks with top inventors, and describes the exciting technologies coming down the pike -- from information appliances to electronic security and quantum computing. In the process, he examines the vital strategic issues in which central labs play a determining role, including: How IBM's eight labs around the world figure in Lou Gerstner's plans to achieve consistent double-digit growth -- and to join GE as a $100 billion concern. Why Xerox's famed Palo Alto Research Center is vying to resuscitate its company's lagging fortunes by sending anthropologists into the field to study the hidden ways people really work. What Hewlett-Packard will do without its original instrument business, recently spun off as Agilent Technologies. The business was central to HP Labs' MC2 philosophy of merging research expertise in measurement, computation, and communication -- and its departure removed a lot that was unique about HP. How the November 1999 federal court finding that Microsoft operates a monopoly hinders the Seattle giant's acquisition plans and makes it increasingly vital for nine-year-old Microsoft Research to lead the way in innovating from within. Could this be the next great lab for the twenty-first century? With authority and undaunted optimism about the underlying vitality of the research process, Buderi discusses these issues and reveals the future of some of the world's best and most powerful companies.
Who are scientists? What kind of people are they? What capacities and virtues are thought to stand behind their considerable authority? They are experts—indeed, highly respected experts—authorized to describe and interpret the natural world and widely trusted to help transform knowledge into power and profit. But are they morally different from other people? The Scientific Life is historian Steven Shapin’s story about who scientists are, who we think they are, and why our sensibilities about such things matter. Conventional wisdom has long held that scientists are neither better nor worse than anyone else, that personal virtue does not necessarily accompany technical expertise, and that scientific practice is profoundly impersonal. Shapin, however, here shows how the uncertainties attending scientific research make the virtues of individual researchers intrinsic to scientific work. From the early twentieth-century origins of corporate research laboratories to the high-flying scientific entrepreneurship of the present, Shapin argues that the radical uncertainties of much contemporary science have made personal virtues more central to its practice than ever before, and he also reveals how radically novel aspects of late modern science have unexpectedly deep historical roots. His elegantly conceived history of the scientific career and character ultimately encourages us to reconsider the very nature of the technical and moral worlds in which we now live. Building on the insights of Shapin’s last three influential books, featuring an utterly fascinating cast of characters, and brimming with bold and original claims, The Scientific Life is essential reading for anyone wanting to reflect on late modern American culture and how it has been shaped.
Take your great idea to the next level with action-research Nancy Fichtman Dana steps in as your action-research coach and leads you on a journey from wonderings to real change in your classroom. With real-life vignettes, self-guided worksheets, and an included DVD, this companion is your go-to guide each time you embark on a new inquiry toward professional growth. Teachers, students, and action-research coaches alike will learn how to: Reframe initial wonderings into pointed inquiries Creatively analyze both qualitative and quantitative data Draw action-research topics out of ordinary discussions with colleagues Share findings with others to help them improve as well
Become the “head learner” in your school by engaging in action research! Action research can serve as a critical element in the professional development of principals, administrators, and school leaders. Award-winning author Nancy Fichtman Dana guides leaders in identifying and exploring areas of interest for principal research, including staff development, curriculum development, individual teachers, community/culture building, leadership skills, building management, and school performance. With a step-by-step approach, this resource: Helps principals develop a question, collect and analyze data, and share the results of their inquiry Includes numerous examples of actual principal inquiry Provides exercises to guide principals through their own inquiry projects
