Information for Innovation Managing Change from an Information Perspective

by Macdonald, Stuart

• ISBN13: 9780199241477
• ISBN10: 0199241473
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-03-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Much is said about the information age, the information economy, the information society, and particularly about information technology, but little about information itself. Here, Stuart Macdonald finds information central to a variety of business/economics disciplines, from patents to high technology, from corporate strategy to industrial espionage. In doing so, he reveals the rather tricky role that information plays in current processes of innovation and change.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xiv
List of Tables	xv
Introduction	1	(6)
PART I: INFORMATION AND THEORY	7	(90)
The Nature of Information	9	(28)
The point of perspective	9	(3)
An information perspective	12	(1)
Demand and supply	13	(5)
Making information ordinary	18	(2)
Informal information transactions	20	(3)
Information networks	23	(4)
Gold and information	27	(2)
Information mercantilism	29	(2)
Information mercantilism in practice	31	(1)
The rise and rise of information mercantilism	32	(5)
Change and Innovation	37	(20)
The quest for information	37	(1)
Change and progress	38	(4)
Change as process: the linear model	42	(7)
Innovation from an information perspective	49	(8)
Sources of Information for Change and Innovation	57	(15)
A glance East	57	(4)
Obvious sources of information	61	(2)
The NIH syndrome	63	(1)
External information and control	64	(1)
Searching and screening	65	(2)
Less obvious sources of external information	67	(5)
The Flow of Information	72	(15)
Use and transfer	72	(1)
Bits and pieces	73	(1)
The epidemic model of diffusion	74	(3)
Dissemination and water	77	(1)
Transfer and transactions	78	(1)
Network exchange and information flow	79	(2)
Informal information flow	81	(2)
Information networks in practice	83	(4)
The Mixing of Information	87	(10)
Exclusive regimes	87	(1)
Gatekeepers	88	(1)
The expert	89	(4)
Chalk and cheese	93	(4)
PART II: INFORMATION AND PRACTICE	97	(184)
Resistance to Information: The Organization and the Independent Inventor	99	(26)
The not-invented-here syndrome	99	(3)
The independent inventor	102	(1)
Government policy for independent inventors	103	(2)
Characteristics of the independent inventor	105	(1)
The independent inventor and the patent system	106	(2)
Attitude of independent inventors towards organizations	108	(3)
Big science, big technology and the little inventor	111	(1)
The research of the independent inventor and the research of the organization	112	(5)
The patent system	117	(3)
The do-not-disturb syndrome	120	(5)
Information Intrigue: Controlling the Flow of Information	125	(35)
Technology and world domination	125	(2)
The Bucy Report and the Department of Defense	127	(3)
Controlling information	130	(2)
Problems in implementation	132	(2)
Control of information within the United States	134	(2)
Extension of controls	136	(5)
Implications for innovation	141	(6)
US controls on information overseas	147	(5)
Lessons unlearnt	152	(8)
Information Innocence: High-Technology Policy and Technology Parks	160	(29)
The high-technology decade	160	(1)
Defining high technology	161	(1)
High hopes of high technology	162	(3)
The cold light of the new dawn	165	(1)
Information and high-technology industries	166	(2)
The failure of high-technology policy	168	(5)
Technology parks in theory	173	(4)
Technology parks in practice	177	(3)
What went wrong?	180	(3)
The lesson	183	(6)
Transfer without Transaction: Policy for Information Acquisition	189	(19)
Tapping the leaks	189	(2)
The Visiting Engineers Scheme (VES)	191	(4)
TechAlert	195	(2)
The Overseas Technical Information Service (OTIS)	197	(6)
The Outward Science and Technology Expert Mission Scheme (OSTEMS)	203	(1)
Information and policy	204	(4)
Hidden Information Flow: Innovation in Eighteenth-Century Agriculture	208	(24)
Systematic change	208	(1)
The improving landlord	209	(2)
The innovating farmer	211	(1)
Formal information acquisition	212	(6)
Farmers and information	218	(3)
Labourers and innovation	221	(5)
Perspectives of the journey to Mecca	226	(6)
The Illusion of Order: Innovation and the Patent System	232	(28)
Information as property	232	(1)
The patent system	233	(2)
Patents and innovation	235	(1)
The threshing machine	235	(5)
The early semiconductor industry	240	(2)
Patents and patent theory	242	(3)
Innovation and information	245	(4)
The whole and the parts	249	(5)
Tolerance and acceptance	254	(6)
Information and Control: Strategic Change in the Organization	260	(21)
Structure and strategy	260	(2)
Information for strategy	262	(6)
Informal information for strategy	268	(3)
Information and telecommunications	271	(3)
Information in strategic theory	274	(7)
Concluding Thoughts	281	(6)
Index	287