Elias G. Carayannis – författare

Uniquely, the book examines the many aspects and consequences of the integration process that are obscure or as yet under-researched. The authors explore a wide range of topics, methodologies and perspectives in order to provide a stimulating and wide-ranging analysis.

The Innovation Union in Europe will be of interest to students, economic theorists, empirical and social scientists, and policy makers as well as the informed general reader.

Contributors: E.G. Carayannis, U. Gråsjö, C. Karlsson, A. Kokkinou, G.M. Korres, A. Lagendijk, A.O. Nakamura, L.I. Nakamura, M. Nakamura, K. Varró, P. Warda

The Quadruple Innovation Helix concept is the synthesis of top-down policies and practices from Government, University and Industry balanced and shaped by bottom-up initiatives and actions by Civil Society. In addition, of significance is the complementary expansion and completion of the Quadruple Innovation Helix by the concept of the Quintuple Innovation Helix, to which an all-encompassing fifth dimension was added, namely, the Environment.

This book expertly defines the impact of public policies and productive public expenditures on innovation and economic growth in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Economic growth is managed by the creation of differentiated productive units that interact with each other and complement each other in the production of continuous innovation. This book provides a theoretical model of economic growth to demonstrate the importance of governments in promoting innovation. It is a seminal read which scholars, governments, and NGOs will find greatly beneficial.

New Product Development (NPD) is about the ideation, formulation, and implementation of new and superior solutions in the market. Beyond the obvious need for organizations to innovate in order to compete, embedded in any NPD program are knowledge, technological expertise, and the social networks that convert these capabilities into offerings that create value at every level—for customers, industries, communities, and regions. 

This volume provides an array of knowledge perspective in NPD across multiple levels of analysis and geographic regions, including Europe, the United States, China, Japan, and India, to explore the dynamics of NPD in today’s global environment.   Presenting case studies from such industries as ICT services, semiconductors, software development, bio-technology, higher education, and even safety for children’s toys, and drawing from a variety of theoretical perspectives, including technology and knowledge management, sociology, economic geography, and organizational behavior, the authors highlight critical success and failure factors in NPD.

Among the topics covered:

Since the pioneering work of Joseph Schumpeter (1942), it has been assumed that innovations typically play a key role in firms’ competitiveness.  This assumption has been applied to firms in both developed and developing countries. However, the innovative capacities and business environments of firms in developing countries are fundamentally different from those in developed countries. It stands to reason that innovation and competitiveness models based on developed countries may not apply to developing countries.

In this volume, Vivienne Wang and Elias G. Carayannis apply both theoretical approaches and empirical analysis to explore the dynamics of innovation in developing countries, with a particular emphasis on R&D in manufacturing firms.  In so doing, they present an alternative to Michael Porter’s Competitive Advantage Model—a Competitive Position Model that focuses on incremental and adaptive innovations that are more appropriate than radical innovations for developing countries.  Their research addresses such questions as:

The resulting analysisnot only challenges traditional theoretical approaches to innovation, but provides suggestions for improving business practice and policymaking.

In several parts of the world, countries are undergoing economic, social, and political transitions, enhanced and accelerated by the forces of globalization. These transition economies can serve as laboratories for understanding the innovation process. This volume features original theoretical and empirical research. It offers the first comprehensive view of innovation system development in the context of small catching-up economies. Smallness, path dependency, and latecomer status of such economies create some inherent limitations for their innovation systems, but these special characteristics can offer advantages as well.

For example, smallness is often related with increased flexibility and shorter reaction times, while latecomers can benefit from earlier experiences of their more advanced neighbors. Path-dependency highlights the fact that the innovation system development processes are considerably influenced by the past experience of a particular country or region.

By incorporating these features into an integrated analysis, the authors address such questions as:

·         What special features characterize the innovation system development in small catching-up economies?

·         What are the causes for innovation success or failure?

·         How do organizational capabilities and internationalization tendencies relate to company level innovations?

·         What is the role of human capital and social factors in the innovation process?

·         How can various policies support innovation in an integrated manner?

Drawing from research about Europe, Asia, and Latin America, the authors provide readers with a systemic view of the innovation system development in small catching-up economies. They discuss the unique features of this development and contribute to an in-depth understanding of various determinants and their impacts on the innovation process.The policy implications will offer a set of normative guidelines for enhancing innovation system development. 

Over the past several decades, as the pace of globalization has accelerated, operational issues of international coordination have often been overlooked.  For example, the global financial crisis that began in 2007 is attributed, in part, to a lack of regulatory oversight.  As a result, supranational organizations, such as the G-20, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, have prioritized strengthening of the international financial architecture and providing opportunities for dialogue on national policies, international co-operation, and international financial institutions.

Prevailing characteristics of the global economic systems, such as the increasing power of financial institutions, changes in the structure of global production, decline in the authority of nation-states over their national economy, and  creation of global institutional setting, e.g., global governance have created the conditions for a naturally evolving process towards enabling national epistemic communities to create institutions that comply with global rules and regulations can control crises. 

In this context, transfer of technical knowledge from the larger organizations and its global epistemic communities to member communities is becoming a policy tool to “convince” participants in the international system to have similar ideas about which rules will govern their mutual participation. In the realm of finance and banking regulation, the primary focus is on transfer of specialized and procedural knowledge in technical domains (such as accounting procedures, payment systems, and corporate governance principles), thereby promoting institutional learning at national and local levels.  In this volume, the authors provide in-depth analysis of initiatives to demonstrate how this type of knowledge generated at the internationalorganization level, is codified into global standards, and disseminated to members, particularly in the developing world, where the legal and regulatory infrastructure is often lacking.  They argue that despite the challenges, when a country intends to join the global system, its institutions and economic structures need to move toward the global norms.  In so doing, they shed new light on the dynamics of knowledge transfer, financial regulation, economic development, with particular respect to supporting global standards and avoiding future crises. 

Developed and developing economies alike face increased resource scarcity and competitive rivalry. In this context, science and technology appear as an essential source of competitive and sustainable advantage at national and regional levels. However, the key determinant of their efficacy is the quality and quantity of entrepreneurship-enabled innovation that unlocks and captures the benefits of the science enterprise in the form of private, public or hybrid goods.  Linking basic and applied research with the market, via technology transfer and commercialization mechanisms, including government-university-industry partnerships and capital investments, constitutes the essential trigger mechanism and driving force of sustainable competitive advantage and prosperity.  In this volume, the authors define the terms and principles of knowledge creation, diffusion, and use, and establish a theoretical framework for their study.  In particular, they focus on the “Quadruple Helix” model, through which government, academia, industry, and civil society are seen as key actors promoting a democratic approach to innovation through which strategy development and decision making are exposed to feedback from key stakeholders, resulting in socially accountable policies and practices. 

Cross-cultural knowledge management, an elusive yet consequential phenomenon, is becoming an increasingly essential factor in organizational practice and policy in the era of globalization.  In order to overcome culturally shaped blind spots in conducting research in different settings, this volume highlights how the structuring of roles, interests, and power among different organizational elements, such as teams, departments, and management hierarchies (each comprised of members from different intellectual and professional backgrounds), generates various paradoxes and tensions that bring into play a set of dynamics that have an impact on learning processes.

 In this context, such questions often arise: How is knowledge shared in the multicultural organization? What problems and issues emerge? How do different mentalities affect people’s responses to new knowledge and new ideas? How can knowledge-sharing processes be improved? Under which conditions do ideas generated by units or groups of different cultural traditions have a chance of being heard and implemented?

Such questions translate into an investigation of potential managerial dilemmas that occur when different but equally valid choices create tensions in decision making. The authors draw from experiences working with a wide variety of organizations, and insights from such fields as sociology and psychology, to shed new light on the dynamics of knowledge management in the multicultural enterprise.  In so doing, they help to identify both obstacles to successful communication and opportunities to inspire creativity and foster collaboration.  The authors note that in order to enable organizations to transfer knowledge effectively, mechanisms for dispute settlement, mediation of cultural conflict, and enforcing agreements need to be in place.