The Cultural Side of Innovation Adding Values [Hardcover]

In most discussions about the knowledge-based economy, innovation is associated or even equated with technology, while cultures influence is ignored. Innovation is however embedded in cultural and social contexts, and neglecting these crucial contexts may impede an innovations diffusionand eventual success.

This book places culture at the center of discussions on innovation, beginning with a comprehensive introduction to innovations various forms, including the history, sociology, and economics of innovation. Insights from marketing and psychology are integrated into a complexity theory framework, which are then utilized to evaluate case studies of organizations experiencing repeated innovation successes. The sometimes fraught relationship of firms to creativity is discussed, and a new model for to calculating the creativity of an economy is presented.

Introduction Part 1: Building Blocks1. The Variety of Innovation 2. Technical and Cultural Aspects of Innovation 3. Degrees of Radicalness of Innovation  4. Darwinian Selection at Different Levels Part2: Making Innovation Succeed5. What Constitutes Fitness in an Economic Environment 6. Mapping Selection Systems 7. Co-Evolution: From Description to Prescription 8. Innovation Routines 9. A Never Ending Dance Part 3:Bonus TrackCreativity and the EconomyA Somewhat Uneasy Relationship

This book provides us with thrilling ideas about how innovations emerge and survive. Dany Jacobs discussion about culture and the evolution of innovations touches upon a topic that ought to be more discussed by anyone who wants to understand tomorrows knowledge economy.-- Bertil Rolandsson, University of Gothenberg, Sweden

Dany Jacobsis Professor of Industrial Dynamics and Innovation Policy at the Universl#g