A Social Theory of Innovation

Styhre, Alexander

ISBN 10: 8763002523 / ISBN 13: 9788763002523

Editore: CBS Press, 2013

Very Good paperback with light shelfwear - NICE! Standard-sized. Codice articolo mon0000261784

Riassunto:

The contemporary economy is primarily understood through the rationalist and formalist lenses of economic theory and its accompanying (mainstream) theories of organization and management. In this corpus of work, the economy is commonly portrayed as emerging on the basis of the calculated and instrumental use of heterogeneous resources. Innovation - the capacity to produce new goods and services, being of key importance in a competitive capitalist economic regime - is a joint collaborative process embedded in social action, i.e., through forms of agency. In contrast to individualist, calculative, and utilitarian images of economic agency, sociologists, historians, anthropologists, and others have demonstrated that economic agency is determined in many cases by social and cultural conditions that extend beyond the narrow sphere of instrumental economic behavior. A Social Theory of Innovation makes a connection between innovation, economic agency, and three complementary perspectives - i.e. those of playfulness, reciprocity, and squandering (the conspicuous and symbolic waste of excess resources) - in terms of being three principles that underlie innovative and creative work. Rather than postulating the homo oeconomicus model of economic agency - prescribed by neoclassical economic theory - as the only possible and legitimate image of economic agency, alternative models exist which in various ways contribute to our understanding of how and why innovation is produced in contemporary society. The book draws on a diverse corpus of literature from management studies, economics, economic sociology, and the humanities to provide a less confined and narrow image of innovation and economic agency. This book is intended for undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate business school curricula in both economic sociology and other educational programs addressing the organization of the economy and society at large.

Informazioni sull'autore: Alexander Styhre, Ph.D., is Chair of Organization Theory and Management, at the Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg. Alexander has published widely in organization theory and management studies journals and is the author, co-author and co-editor of more than twenty research monographs, textbooks and edited volumes, including the most recent Organizations and the Bioeconomy (Routledge, 2012). Alexander is the Editor-in-Chief of Scandinavian Journal of Management.

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Titolo: A Social Theory of Innovation
Casa editrice: CBS Press
Data di pubblicazione: 2013
Legatura: paperback
Condizione: Very Good