Overview
- Focus on invention and innovation as socio-technical processes
- Applied complex system perspective
- Innovative social science theory
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Methodos Series (METH, volume 7)
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About this book
Innovation is nowadays a question of life and death for many of the economies of the western world. Yet, due to our generally reductionist scientific paradigm, invention and innovation are rarely studied scientifically. Most work prefers to study its context and its consequences. As a result, we are as a society, lacking the scientific tools to understand, improve or otherwise impact on the processes of invention and innovation. This book delves deeply into that topic, taking the position that the complex systems approach, with its emphasis on ‘emergence’, is better suited than our traditional approach to the phenomenon. In a collection of very coherent papers, which are the result of an EU-funded four year international research team’s effort, it addresses various aspect of the topic from different disciplinary angles. One of the main emphases is the need, in the social sciences, to move away from neo-darwinist ‘population thinking’ to ‘organization thinking’ if we want to understand social evolution. Another main emphasis is on developing a generative approach to invention and innovation, looking in detail at the contexts within which invention and innovation occur, and how these contexts impact on the chances for success or failure. Throughout, the book is infused with interesting new insights, but also presents several well-elaborated case studies that connect the ideas with a substantive body of ‘real world’ information.
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Keywords
Table of contents (18 chapters)
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Introduction
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From Biology to Society
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Innovation and Urban Systems
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Innovation and Market Systems
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Modeling Innovation and Social Change
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Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change
Editors: David Lane, Denise Pumain, Sander Ernst Leeuw, Geoffrey West
Series Title: Methodos Series
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9663-1
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-9662-4Published: 20 February 2009
Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-8179-7Published: 28 October 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4020-9663-1Published: 13 February 2009
Series ISSN: 1572-7750
Series E-ISSN: 2542-9892
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 492
Topics: Social Sciences, general, Geography, general, Sociology, general, Regional/Spatial Science, Archaeology