This volume describes how conflicting managerial actors become mobilized to co-operate in situations of discontinuous technological change. These ideas are explored through an in-depth study of the Finnish paper industry.
Emphasizing the practical side of Technology and Innovation Management, this book includes significant contributions to the practice of strategizing, management of competences and innovation management. While the findings are research-based, each contribution has 'managerial implications' which cover the recommended implementation.
Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.
This book is based on the findings, issues and questions related to an ongoing decade-old research project named the Innovation Lab (www.innovation-lab.org). The research project focuses on discontinuous innovation in more than thirteen countries, most of which are European, and provides useful insights into its different challenges. It also raises several questions related to the subject, some of which are: how do firms pick up weak signals on emerging — and possibly radically different — innovation? What should firms do when these weak signals hit their “mainstream” process? What are the criteria for allocating resources to a strategic innovation project? What actions should firms take to avoid being left out by the “corporate immune system”? How should firms organize projects that often break existing rules and require new rules to be created?This book attempts to provide answers to the above mentioned questions by gathering information from the research project and also from firms that have tried exploring various ideas, models and insights to tackle discontinuous innovation. Written in a simple and accessible manner, this book will be of interest to both practitioners and academics alike.
This volume is concerned with the nature of new manufacturing technologies, such as CAD/CAM and robotics, as well as ap propriate methodologies for evaluating whether such technologies are financially and organizationally viable in particular contexts. The chapters included here were commissioned as papers for presen tation at The Wharton Conference on Productivity, Technology, and Organizational Innovation, which took place in Philadelphia on December 8 and 9 of 1983. The conference was sponsored by The University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Organizational Innovation. There has been a surge of interest in the area of manufacturing over the past ten years as managers have come to realize that the operations function is critical to remaining competitive. New status has been given to factory and operations managers. New programs revitalizing manufacturing and distribution have been introduced in organizations. Corporate strategy is now explicitly considering operations and manufacturing functions. And the curricula of leading business schools are reflecting the rapidly advancing research on technology management and manufacturing operations. In spite of these important signs of progress, we are clearly just at the beginning of understanding the issues involved here. The present volume provides a state-of-the-art review of the realities of technology management and manufacturing strategy. As described in the Editor's Introduction, we address four topics: The Nature of New Manufacturing Technology, Innovation and Manufacturing Strategy, Productivity Management, and Technology Management and Organ ization. These issues are clearly very important themes for U.S.
Technology in the Modern Corporation: A Strategic Perspective examines the role of technology in corporate planning and all that this relationship implies to corporate organization and strategy. Organized into 13 chapters, this book first discusses the management of corporate entrepreneurship; technological innovation and interdependence; and the rise and character of modern technology strategy. Subsequent chapters describe corporate research and development; corporate strategies for managing emerging technologies; approaches for the strategic management of technology; innovation and corporate strategy; and executive succession, strategic reorientations, and organization evolution.
Drawing on the research of more than 50 influential international scholars, this extensive interdisciplinary survey consolidates and evaluates what is known and not known about organizations, and critically examines how we learn about and study them. Contributors include 50 influential international scholars. Contributions represent the most important contemporary perspectives on organizations, including networks, ecology and technology. Each topic is covered at three levels of organization: intraorganizational, organizational, and interorganizational. Chapters structured around five common elements for ease of use.
Conference report, technology management - technological change, technology transfers, technological innovations, small scale industry, research and development in planning, education, training, economic analysis.
'Its focus is the major theme of digital innovation and it tries to go beyond the hype associated with much of the discussion of this important area … The discussion in the book stresses the need to move our thinking about innovation beyond the level of enterprise to consider ecosystems and complementary assets … Overall this is a useful book, not least because in addition to opening up key lines for further research enquiry the book also has a strong international flavour with contributions from a wide and diverse set of contexts.'International Journal of Innovation ManagementThere is no doubt that digital technologies have the potential for disruptive innovation in a wide range of sectors, both in manufacturing and services, and the commercial and social domains. However, popular commentaries on the potential of digital innovation to disrupt have suffered from two extreme positions: either, simplistic technological determinism, often promoted by technology vendors, claiming that the impending widespread automation of products and services will provide step-changes in productivity and new products and services; or alternatively, very high-level broad discussions of business model innovation in traditional sectors, private and public. However, the impacts will not be universal, and the outcomes will be highly-differentiated. More fundamentally, neither a narrow technological perspective or broad business view adequately captures the appropriate level of granularity necessary to understand the potential and challenges presented by digital innovation. In this book, Digital Disruptive Innovation, we apply innovation concepts, models and research to provide greater insights into strategies for, and management of, digital innovation.
Research report on production management, manufacturing competitiveness, and the evolutionary process of technologys, based on a case study of the USA motor vehicle industry - discusses Innovation trends 1893-1981, causes of current industrial decline (incl. De- maturity, technological obsolescence, competition and labour relations); provides comparisons of labour productivity, labour costs and production costs with Japan; stresses the need for product development, workers participation, and quality of working life. Graphs, references.