Debating Innovation

Debating Innovation
Author: Alf Rehn
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2023-02-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3031166663

Despite its complexity, innovation is often depicted within academic literature as a phenomenon that is innately good and always necessary. This thought-provoking volume presents a more nuanced view – through a number of paired chapters for and against, as well as more general critiques of innovation and several suggested new lines of inquiry, the book will be of interest to all with a broader interest in innovation.

Innovation and Its Enemies

Innovation and Its Enemies
Author: Calestous Juma
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2016
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190467037

New technologies may be heralded as life-changing innovations or feared as risks to moral values, human health, and environmental safety. Anxieties surrounding technology are often heightened by perceptions that their benefits will accrue to small sections of society while the risks are more widely distributed. Innovation and Its Enemies identifies the tension between the need for innovation and the pressure to maintain continuity, social order and stability as one of today's biggest policy challenges. It looks at a number of historical examples, including coffee, electricity, margarine, farm mechanization, recorded music, transgenic crops and transgenic animals, to show how new technologies emerge, take root and create new institutional ecologies that favor their dominance in the marketplace.

Debating Varieties of Capitalism

Debating Varieties of Capitalism
Author: Bob Hancké
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2009-09-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199569673

Hall and Soskice's Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) has become a seminal text across the social sciences in the debate about political-economic models. Here, Bob Hancké presents the key readings on VoC, including the original Hall and Soskice introduction, showing how these ideas have changed the way we look at comparative political economy.

How China Escaped Shock Therapy

How China Escaped Shock Therapy
Author: Isabella M. Weber
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-05-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 042995395X

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country’s rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China’s path. In the first post-Mao decade, China’s reformers were sharply divided. They agreed that China had to reform its economic system and move toward more marketization—but struggled over how to go about it. Should China destroy the core of the socialist system through shock therapy, or should it use the institutions of the planned economy as market creators? With hindsight, the historical record proves the high stakes behind the question: China embarked on an economic expansion commonly described as unprecedented in scope and pace, whereas Russia’s economy collapsed under shock therapy. Based on extensive research, including interviews with key Chinese and international participants and World Bank officials as well as insights gleaned from unpublished documents, the book charts the debate that ultimately enabled China to follow a path to gradual reindustrialization. Beyond shedding light on the crossroads of the 1980s, it reveals the intellectual foundations of state-market relations in reform-era China through a longue durée lens. Overall, the book delivers an original perspective on China’s economic model and its continuing contestations from within and from without.

The Long-Wave Debate

The Long-Wave Debate
Author: Tibor Vasko
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3662103516

The proceedings reflect the state-of-the-art of long-term fluctuations in economic growth as well as discussing promising areas of research in this field. The unique combination of participants from East and West (including the People's Republic of China) is a guarantee for wide coverage and unusual insights. The problems treated range from the identification of long-term fluctuations in developing and developed countries in both East and West to their relationship to important economic variables (profit, prices, money supply). Particular attention is focused on structural changes and the role of technological development in the light of the long-term fluctuation concept. It is interesting to follow the treatment of this issue by scientists with different orientations. The role of financial and monetary variables is also analyzed by leading researchers in the field.

Winning Debates

Winning Debates
Author: Steven L. Johnson
Publisher: IDEA
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781932716511

Powering the Future brings together material that assesses innovative solutions to the global climate and energy crises. It explores the fundamental differences between alternative and renewable energy sources, and the role of developing nations in implementing these technologies, among other issues. Chapters address: An overview of green energy sources and select worldwide initiatives The benefits of alternative energy Drawbacks to energy alternatives Differing approaches to alternative energy implemen-tation The alternative vs. renewable energy debate Alternative energy in the developing world. A general introduction and introductory essays to each chapter give the reader the necessary background to put the issue in perspective.

Shared Value Debate (The)

Shared Value Debate (The)
Author: Maurizio Zollo
Publisher: EGEA spa
Total Pages: 86
Release: 2013-10-10T00:00:00+02:00
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 8823875889

The Shared Value Debate. Academic Visions on Corporate Sustainabilityis the first issue of the Enel Foundation series ŇAcademic VisionsÓ. Sixteen scholars, belonging to universities and research centres located in different countries around the globe, are the authors of short papers that resume their findings and visions on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The volume offers a view on the current academic debate, increasingly focused on the new role that corporate dynamics play in the global scenario, and allows the emergence of the wide variety of perspectives on the core set of issues brought up by the shared value logic. The authors, aware of the growing importance and influence of these issues on future society, deal with key concepts and ideas on the role that Environmental, Social and Governance principles and actions have in shaping the new business model for the incoming years. Reflecting both scientific interests and geographical peculiarities, every article will introduce the readers to a specific issue and peculiar point of view on CSR debate. In the resulting picture, the shared value logic appears as a powerful combination of conceptual wisdom, albeit not all generated by its proponents, and managerial insight, that contributes to diffuse and evolve a new way of conceiving the business enterprise.

Net Neutrality: Contributions to the Debate

Net Neutrality: Contributions to the Debate
Author: Jorge Pérez Martínez (Coord.)
Publisher: Fundación Telefónica
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2011-03-30
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 8408098926

After a decade of discussion on how to guarantee an open, sustainable internet and often intense debate regarding the Federal Communications Commission's 2009 public hearing on the application of the principles of net neutrality, on 21st December 2010 the various elements that comprise the solution to this now famous controversy were passed. This solution has not satisfied many people, and nearly everyone agrees that it will not end the debate and nor will it resolve the underlying structural problems. This book examines the source, development and viewpoints on this issue based on contributions from leading experts from the academic and business worlds in the USA and Europe who have been involved in the debate. This is a highly important book for understanding the various points of view on the very current and controversial issue of web neutrality.

The Great School Debate

The Great School Debate
Author: Thomas L. Good
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135654727

This book examines reform in American education over the past fifty years and against this backdrop presents a compelling analysis of why contemporary voucher plans and charter schools have yet to fulfill the expectations of their advocates. It is the only book to date to attempt a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of the emerging research base on vouchers and charter schools. Suitable for courses in school policy, school reform, school leadership, or educational issues, it will also be of interest to anyone (parents, teachers, policymakers) directly involved with the charter school movement. Key features of this timely new book include the following: * A Historical Perspective--The early chapters look at American educational reform over the past fifty years and analyze why these efforts have fallen short of their goals. * Student Achievement--Chapter 3 provides an insightful assessment of American students' school achievement from 1970 to the present and, in the process, counters the widely held myth that, overall, student achievement has deteriorated. * Voucher Plans and Charter Schools--Chapter 4 looks specifically at choice and vouchers in American education while chapters 5-7 provide a comprehensive and balanced examination of the charter school movement. * Policy Recommendations--The book concludes with explicit policy suggestions that attempt to balance the educational needs of children and youth against the rights of schools to experiment. Suggestions for developing broader coalitions to support public education, particularly in the inner cities, are also offered.

Responsible Innovation

Responsible Innovation
Author: Richard Owen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2013-03-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118551400

Science and innovation have the power to transform our lives and the world we live in - for better or worse – in ways that often transcend borders and generations: from the innovation of complex financial products that played such an important role in the recent financial crisis to current proposals to intentionally engineer our Earth’s climate. The promise of science and innovation brings with it ethical dilemmas and impacts which are often uncertain and unpredictable: it is often only once these have emerged that we feel able to control them. How do we undertake science and innovation responsibly under such conditions, towards not only socially acceptable, but socially desirable goals and in a way that is democratic, equitable and sustainable? Responsible innovation challenges us all to think about our responsibilities for the future, as scientists, innovators and citizens, and to act upon these. This book begins with a description of the current landscape of innovation and in subsequent chapters offers perspectives on the emerging concept of responsible innovation and its historical foundations, including key elements of a responsible innovation approach and examples of practical implementation. Written in a constructive and accessible way, Responsible Innovation includes chapters on: Innovation and its management in the 21st century A vision and framework for responsible innovation Concepts of future-oriented responsibility as an underpinning philosophy Values – sensitive design Key themes of anticipation, reflection, deliberation and responsiveness Multi – level governance and regulation Perspectives on responsible innovation in finance, ICT, geoengineering and nanotechnology Essentially multidisciplinary in nature, this landmark text combines research from the fields of science and technology studies, philosophy, innovation governance, business studies and beyond to address the question, “How do we ensure the responsible emergence of science and innovation in society?”