The Process Of Technological Innovation

Provides an evolutionary perspective on the origin of products. Offers a method to give designers directions in New Product Development.

Technology refers to any set of standardised procedures for transforming raw materials into finished products. Innovation consists of any change in technology which has tangible and lasting effect on human practices, whether or not it provides utilitarian advantages. Prehistoric societies were never static, but the tempo of innovation occasionally increased to the point that we can refer to transformation taking place. Prehistorians must therefore identify factors promoting or hindering innovation.This volume stems from an international workshop, organised by the Collaborative Research Centre 1266 'Scales of Transformation' at Kiel University in November 2017. The meeting challenged its participants to detect and explain technological change in the past and its role in transformation processes, using archaeological and ethnographic case studies. The papers draw mainly on examples from prehistoric Europe, but case-studies from Iran, the Indus Valley, and contemporary central America are also included. The authors adopt several perspectives, including cultural-historical, economic, environmental, demographic, functional, and agent-based approaches.These case studies often rely on interdisciplinary research, whereby field archaeology, archaeometric analysis, experimental archaeology and ethnographic research are used together to observe and explain innovations and changes in the artisan's repertoire. The results demonstrate that interdisciplinary research is becoming essential to understanding transformation phenomena in prehistoric archaeology, superseding typo-chronological description and comparison.This book is a scholarly publication aimed at academic researchers, particularly archaeologists and archaeological scientists working on ceramics, osseous and metal artifacts.

Technological Innovation: Strategy and Management offers a comprehensive analysis of technological innovation management from a strategic and integrated approach. The book covers the most relevant topics on the discipline of Innovation Management, such as the conceptual framework for innovation and technology, the study of innovation sources, the strategic management of innovation and technology, innovation enablers (organization, leadership, culture, human capital, creativity and learning), innovation outcomes (product and process innovation), and the evaluation and control of the innovation process. It particularly highlights the role of innovation and technology to build sustainable competitive advantages. The book references the most relevant and updated research work in this realm. This can be helpful for researchers, scholars and practitioners who want to have an updated guide on the state-of-the-art technological innovation management.

Monograph on causes, trends and impact of technological change - presents definitions and theoretical approaches to the description of the origin, diffusion and development of new technology (incl. Historical inventions and innovations), discusses effects on long term economic growth, manufacturing, learning, research and development, etc., and includes science policy, educational policy and industrial policy suggestions and case studies. Graphs and references.

Ground-breaking yet non-technical analysis of the analogy that technological artefacts 'evolve' like biological organisms.