Social Interaction and Organisational Change

by Jones, Oswald; Conway, Steve; Steward, Fred

• ISBN13: 9781860942037
• ISBN10: 1860942032
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Imperial College Pr

Summary

This book provides a detailed, multi-disciplinary analysis of innovation networks in a variety of organisational settings. All the contributors are employed at Aston Business School, which is one of the UK's foremost institutions in terms of both teaching and research. The book illustrates the way in which innovation networks are formed and sustained in a variety of organisational settings: the public sector, public-private collaboration, national policy level, inter-organisational credit links, as well as the more traditional focus on manufacturing firms. The strength of the network approach is that it encourages detailed analyses of the dyadic links which must be mobilised in the innovation process. At the same time, networks provide a framework for exploring the multiple sources and pluralistic patterns of communication typical of innovatory activity. Therefore, in contrast to much of the innovation network research undertaken in recent years, the focus of this book is as much on notions of "network as method" as on "network as phenomenon".

Table of Contents

Preface	v
The Contributors	vii
Introduction: Social and Interaction and Organisational Change	1	(40)
Micropolitics and Network Mapping: Innovation Management in a Mature Firm	41	(40)
Employing Social Network Mapping to Reveal Tensions Between Informal and Formal Organisation	81	(44)
An Economic Perspective on Innovation Networks	125	(40)
Patterns of Networking in the Innovation Process: A Comparative Study of the UK, Germany and Ireland	165	(28)
Shaping Technological Trajectories through Innovation Networks and Risk Networks: Investigating the Food Sector	193	(24)
Techno-Economic Networks: Technological Transfer via the Teaching Company Scheme	217	(34)
Organisations, Networks, and Learning: A Sociological View	251	(36)
The Innovative Capacity of Voluntary and Non-Profit Organisations: Networks and the External Environment	287	(34)
Innovation through Postmodern Networks: The Case of Ecoprotestors	321	(28)
Realising the Potential of the Network Perspective in Researching Social Interaction and Innovation	349	(18)
Index	367