How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

Course Description In this course, we will explore the question of the actual and potential connections between democracy and education. Our focus of attention will be placed on a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers. We will survey and deal critically with a range of competing conceptions of democracy, variously described as classical, republican, liberal, radical, marxist, neomarxist, pragmatist, feminist, populist, pluralist, postmodern, and/or participatory. Using narrative inquiry as a means for illuminating and interpreting contemporary practice, we will analyze the implications of different conceptions of democracy for the practical work of civic education.

Democracy and education.

This handbook looks to provide academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation. Innovation spans a number of fields within the social sciences and humanities: Management, Economics, Geography, Sociology, Politics, Psychology, and History. Consequently, the rapidly increasing body of literature on innovation is characterized by a multitude of perspectives based on, or cutting across, existing disciplines and specializations. Scholars of innovation can come from such diverse starting points that much of this literature can be missed, and so constructive dialogues missed. The editors of The Oxford Handbook of Innovation have carefully selected and designed twenty-one contributions from leading academic experts within their particular field, each focusing on a specific aspect of innovation. These have been organized into four main sections, the first of which looks at the creation of innovations, with particular focus on firms and networks. Section Two provides an account of the wider systematic setting influencing innovation and the role of institutions and organizations in this context. Section Three explores some of the diversity in the working of innovation over time and across different sectors of the economy, and Section Four focuses on the consequences of innovation with respect to economic growth, international competitiveness, and employment. An introductory overview, concluding remarks, and guide to further reading for each chapter, make this handbook a key introduction and vital reference work for researchers, academics, and advanced students of innovation. Contributors to this volume - Jan Fagerberg, University of Oslo William Lazonick, INSEAD Walter W. Powell, Stanford University Keith Pavitt, SPRU Alice Lam, Brunel University Keith Smith, INTECH Charles Edquist, Linkoping David Mowery, University of California, Berkeley Mary O'Sullivan, INSEAD Ove Granstrand, Chalmers Bjorn Asheim, University of Lund Rajneesh Narula, Copenhagen Business School Antonello Zanfei, Urbino Kristine Bruland, University of Oslo Franco Malerba, University of Bocconi Nick Von Tunzelmann, SPRU Ian Miles, University of Manchester Bronwyn Hall, University of California, Berkeley Bart Verspagen , ECIS Francisco Louca, ISEG Manuel M. Godinho, ISEG Richard R. Nelson, Mario Pianta, Urbino Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Aalborg

The Oxford Handbook of Innovation

Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

The present article seeks to advance the theoretical knowledge of entrepreneurial learning by reviewing and synthesizing available research into a conceptual framework that explains the process of entrepreneurial learning as an experiential process. The framework identifies three main components in the process of entrepreneurial learning: entrepreneurs' career experience, the transformation process, and entrepreneurial knowledge in terms of effectiveness in recognizing and acting on entrepreneurial opportunities and coping with the liabilities of newness. Based on the arguments in the article, five major propositions were developed to refine our understanding of entrepreneurial learning. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

The Process of Entrepreneurial Learning: A Conceptual Framework

In this paper we employ theories of experiential learning to examine why some entrepreneurs have developed a more positive attitude towards failures compared to others. The empirical findings support our guiding proposition that more favourable attitudes towards failing can be learned through entrepreneurs' life and work. Our results suggest that previous start up experience is strongly associated with a more positive attitude towards failure. Moreover, we also find that experience from closing down a business is associated with a more positive attitude towards failure. In sum, our findings add to our knowledge of why some entrepreneurs have a more positive attitude towards failures compared to others. It also provides some general implications for our understanding of entrepreneurial learning as an experiential process.

Entrepreneurs' Attitudes Towards Failure - An Experiential Learning Approach

This paper aims to present a study of the role of prior start-up experience as a source of learning in the entrepreneurial process. Three learning outcomes are examined with respect to a compariso ...

Does prior start‐up experience matter for entrepreneurs' learning?: A comparison between novice and habitual entrepreneurs

Purpose– This paper employs theories of experiential learning to examine why some entrepreneurs have developed a more positive attitude towards failures compared to others.Design/methodology/approa ...

Entrepreneurs' attitudes towards failure: An experiential learning approach

Business angels have been highlighted as important stakeholders for potential high-growth ventures. Extant empirical research provides evidence that they not only contribute with money but also bring added value to the ventures in which they have invested. However, despite the reported benefits of the value added provided by these investors there are very few studies that try to conceptualize this important issue. The present study seeks to meet this shortcoming by presenting a review of literature and research on business angels and value added. The overall objective is to recognize the range of value added activities that business angels have been reported to perform, aggregate the findings into a set of distinct but complementary value adding roles, and then link these roles to theoretical perspectives that explain why they have the potential to contribute to added value. Four different value added roles performed by informal investors are presented together with an explanation of how they can be seen as complementary to each other. The following discussion is then used to guide future studies of business angels and value added towards areas where our knowledge is still limited.

Diamanto Politis

Papers

The Process of Entrepreneurial Learning: A Conceptual Framework

Entrepreneurs' Attitudes Towards Failure - An Experiential Learning Approach

Does prior start‐up experience matter for entrepreneurs' learning?: A comparison between novice and habitual entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs' attitudes towards failure: An experiential learning approach

Business angels and value added: what do we know and where do we go?