This book shows that sustainable development should be analysed and managed as an innovation journey in which social, technological, political and cultural dimensions become aligned. The ‘journey’ aspect captures the open and uncertain nature of sustainable developments and highlights the agency dimension, with actors navigating, negotiating, groping and struggling their way forward (and sometimes backward). The book addresses the following research questions: What are the key processes and micro-dynamics of innovation journeys? Which policy lessons can be drawn for managing sustainable innovation journeys? To conceptualize the multi-dimensional nature of innovation journeys the book draws on insights from industrial economics, evolutionary economics, sociology of technology, political science and cultural studies. The book develops several new conceptual frameworks that make different crossovers between these disciplines. These frameworks are empirically tested with case studies on biofuels, onshore wind power, low energy housing, photovoltaic solar cells, biomass and fuel cells. The empirical studies are also used to derive several robust lessons as to how policy makers can influence sustainable innovation journeys. This book was published as a special issue of Technology Analysis & Strategic Management.

This book shows that sustainable development should be analysed and managed as an innovation journey in which social, technological, political and cultural dimensions become aligned. The ‘journey’ aspect captures the open and uncertain nature of sustainable developments and highlights the agency dimension, with actors navigating, negotiating, groping and struggling their way forward (and sometimes backward). The book addresses the following research questions: What are the key processes and micro-dynamics of innovation journeys? Which policy lessons can be drawn for managing sustainable innovation journeys? To conceptualize the multi-dimensional nature of innovation journeys the book draws on insights from industrial economics, evolutionary economics, sociology of technology, political science and cultural studies. The book develops several new conceptual frameworks that make different crossovers between these disciplines. These frameworks are empirically tested with case studies on biofuels, onshore wind power, low energy housing, photovoltaic solar cells, biomass and fuel cells. The empirical studies are also used to derive several robust lessons as to how policy makers can influence sustainable innovation journeys. This book was published as a special issue of Technology Analysis & Strategic Management.

While science and technology research, sources of funding, performance, incentives, and motivations for technology innovation activities are reasonably well understood by academics and policy makers, the complex process by which scientific results are exploited and transformed into new technologies through an innovation process is poorly documented and studied little. Technology Dynamics is dedicated to the complex activity of technology innovation, with the aim of describing how innovative ideas are generated and their transformation into new technologies. It is based on the idea that technology evolves continuously with time, is changed by innovations, and is characterized by a dynamic that is constituted by technological processes occurring in organizational structures, as well as during the use of technologies. The five chapters Discuss technological processes for innovation; Describe innovation within organizational structures; Offer information on interfacing of science and economic factors with technology; Suggest new statistical studies for innovation and new approaches for innovation policies; and Examine the contribution of technology dynamics to statistical studies and promotion of technology innovation. This book is aimed at managers developing strategies for technology innovation, researchers interested in exploiting scientific results for innovative ideas and new technologies, scholars and students studying the economics of innovation. The book would also of interest to private or public financiers of innovation and policy makers involved in economic growth strategy.

Innovation involves a set of processes which support the production and transformation of knowledge into new processes, technologies and products, goods and services, and provide an organization with particular strengths and value relative to other firms. In such a view, innovation is a key source of customer benefits and sustainable competitive advantage. Technological, Managerial and Organizational Core Competencies: Dynamic Innovation and Sustainable Development investigates the impact of knowledge management, information systems, finance, organizational networks, internationalization, strategic management, marketing, entrepreneurship, and sustainability on an organization that pursues dynamic innovation and sustainable advantage. This book provides research and practice for graduate and undergraduate programs, as well as business firms with different technological, managerial, and organizational perspectives. Further Description from the Editors: This book represents the culmination of an international project to compile inter-disciplinary research that most contributes to innovation. More specifically, this book is about innovation in firms, industries, nations and society. It speaks to professionals and researchers who want to improve their understanding of dynamic innovation and sustainable development. The Editors’ goal is to foster cross-pollination among researchers. To this aim, the Editors have selected and assembled 35 chapters that illustrate multidisciplinary theoretical perspectives and empiric results on innovation and the roles of Sustainability, Organizational Networks, Entrepreneurship, Knowledge Management, R&D&T (Research, Development and Technology) Management, Marketing, Finance, Internationalization, and Information Systems in the organization that pursues dynamic innovation and sustainable development. Innovation involves processes, organizational elements (or resources), and Organizational Abilities (OA) that support the production and transformation of knowledge into new knowledge, processes, structures, technologies and products, goods and services. At the firm and industry levels of analysis, innovation can provide organizations with strengths relative to other firms, clusters, and nations and it is a key source of customer benefits and sustainable development. At the collective and societal levels of analysis, innovation can provide humanity with economic, social and environmental wealth through sustainable development. The uniqueness of this book lies in the participants’ efforts to identify Organizations' Creative Areas (OCA) that can provide core competencies for the organization in pursuit of dynamic innovation and sustainable development. In this perspective, innovation is a dynamic system and it is contingent upon a set of core competencies that couple to each other. Therefore, changing of even one competence can affect the organization's ability to innovate. The book avoids the term competitive advantage and adopts a more fruitful perspective of sustainable development – “the process of achieving human development … in an inclusive, connected, equitable, prudent, and secure manner”. An inclusive perspective sees traditional competitive advantage as occupying one extreme, whereas truly sustainable development occupies the opposite extreme. Sustainable development must benefit not only the organization and its customers, but also the whole society and the future of humanity through sustainability. Most chapters of this book fall between these extremes.

Technology is taking on an increasingly central and determining role in so ciety, and can provide contradictory results: wealth on the one hand, but also unemployment, environmental imbalances and other social problems on the other. Manufacturing techniques and production organization are chosen in every country based mainly on the specific needs of the companies, while the real needs of each population are often quite different. Already, in order to prevent all forms of technology from becoming in creasingly "invasive", towards both the natural supply of resources and the specific - though highly differentiated - needs of humanity, technological paths must be identified and followed which are capable of making the vari ous needs compatible, from the standpoint of sustainable development, the conservation and increase in value of natural resources, and the quality of development. This will become increasingly important in the future. This goal is undoubtedly ambitious and difficult to achieve; however, evi dence of the problems caused by generalized, uncontrolled use of technolo gy, all over the world, leads us to believe that intense efforts must be made to achieve this aim. If not, humankind runs the risk of an irreversible degra dation of the most important aspects of economic development and its quali ty. Within this framework, those companies that produce goods and services obviously occupy a central, active role, which they must play with a view both to competitiveness and overall qualification and to contributing to the objectives of sustainable development.

Providing new insights into the relationship between transport and the environment, and the meaning of the concept of sustainable development for the transport sector, special attention is paid to the relationship between technological progress and policy. The different theoretical approaches are combined to create a strategy for R&D and the implementation of mega-technological innovations. The author deals with two specific cases: Maglev technology and fuel-cell technology for transport purposes. Taking into account the new theoretical insights and the empirical findings, the resulting synthesis and conclusions are important for researchers and professionals in transportation, environmental sciences and related fields.

First Published in 2010. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In developing this model, Utterback examines industries over long periods of time to discover patterns in the way innovation is introduced, adopted, and then replaced by yet further innovation.