The Oxford Handbook of Innovation Management offers a comprehensive and timely analysis of the nature and importance of innovation and the strategies and practices that can be used to improve organizational benefits from innovation. Innovation is centrally important for business and national competitiveness, and for the quality and standard of living around the world, but it does not happen by itself. For innovation to succeed, it needs to be properly managed. With contributions f...

Across the social sciences, scholars are increasingly showing how people 'work' to construct organizational life, including the rules and routines that shape and enable organizational activity, the identities of people who occupy organizations, and the societal norms and assumptions that provide the context for organizational action. The idea of work emphasizes the ways in which people and groups engage in purposeful, reflexive efforts rooted in an awareness of organizational life as const...

Both history and current events attest to the continued significance of religion in society. Despite the role and importance of the institution of religion, and the profound influence that religious organizations continue to exert, it occupies a curiously marginal place in organization theory. At the same time, organization theory has been criticized for its narrow focus on corporations and there have been calls to study a much broader range of organizational forms (e.g., Bamberger and Pra...

Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of Social Construction is the first book to provide a concise, straightforward guide for students and researchers who are interested in understanding and using discourse analysis. The authors reflect on the practice of analyzing discourse and the potential for revealing the processes of social construction that constitute social and organizational life. Addressed to graduate students, academics, and experienced researchers, this ...

Why did the New York Stock Exchange suspend trading without warning on July 8, 2015? Why did certain Toyota vehicles accelerate uncontrollably against the will of their drivers? Why does the programming inside our airplanes occasionally surprise its creators?After a thorough analysis by the top experts, the answers still elude us.You don’t understand the software running your car or your iPhone. But here’s a secret: neither do the geniuses at Apple or the Ph.D.’s at Toyota—no...

Why Were the Teachings of the Original Christians Brutally Suppressed by the Roman Church?• Because they portray Jesus and Mary Magdalene as mythic figures based on the Pagan Godman and Goddess• Because they show that the gospel story is a spiritual allegory encapsulating a profound philosophy that leads to mythical enlightenment• Because they have the power to turn the world inside out and transform life into an exploration of consciousnessDrawing on modern s...

Why isn’t everyone creative? Why doesn’t education foster more ingenuity? Why is expertise often the enemy of innovation? Best-selling creativity expert Michael Michalko shows that in every field of endeavor, from business and science to government, the arts, and even day-to-day life - natural creativity is limited by the prejudices of logic and the structures of accepted categories and concepts. Through step-by-step exercises, illustrated strategies, and inspiring real-world examples he s...

Designed for novice as well as more experienced researchers, Reason & Rigor presents conceptual frameworks as a mechanism for aligning literature review, research design, and methodology. The book explores the conceptual framework—defined as both a process and a product—that helps to direct and ground researchers as they work through common research challenges. Focusing on published studies on a range of topics and employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, the u...

On September 11, 2001, Americans witnessed horrific carnage inspired by religious extremism. We saw religious fundamentalists will stop at nothing to reign terror on those they regard as their enemies. In our response, we began to focus on the oppressive treatment of women and children in other parts of the world where religious fundamentalism rules. But we failed to acknowledge the impact and similarities of Christian fundamentalism.Even now, most Americans fail to realize the mag...

Written by an international team of experts in the field, the second edition of this popular text considers both the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of narrative research. The authors take the reader from initial decisions about forms of narrative research, through more complex issues of reflexivity, interpretation and the research context. Existing chapters have been updated to reflect changes in the literature and new chapters from eminent narrative scholars in Europ...

An exploration into why and how Jamaicans become Rastafari in spite of increasing incrimination of the religion.So much has been written about the Rastafari, yet we know so little about why and how people join the movement. Although popular understandings evoke images of dreadlocks, reggae, and marijuana, Rastafarians were persecuted in their country, becoming a people seeking social justice. Yet new adherents continued to convert to Rastafari despite facing advers...

Managers are increasingly concerned with the typical methods available for organizational performance measurement and control. Research into performance measurement, within the field of innovation management, has been variously approached through frameworks for performance measurement in general (for example, the Balanced Scorecard by Norton and Kaplan), R&D performance management, and surveys on in-use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). It is striking, however, thatalmost no resea...