Håkan Håkansson

Alexandra Waluszewski

Through a detailed analysis of the case-study, the authors demonstrate the necessity of including social, technological and economical factors when dealing with such issues. Focusing on the interactive aspects of commercial and technological development, they examine how new solutions are developed and shaped in relation to the different companies and organizations involved. They investigate resources in terms of how they are related and built into other resources through historical and contemporary interaction processes. Their overall emphasis is on dealing with the issue of how different, closely and distantly related companies and organizations are affected when resources are developed. This book should provide useful case-study information and essential discussion for scholars interested in the management of technological development and development in interaction. It should also be useful reading for high-level students and researchers, practitioners and policy-makers in management science and economics, environmental politics and in the paper and pulp industry.

IKEA, the Environment and Technology

Managing Technological Development

Sharon Rider

Ylva Hasselberg

This volume tackles head-on the controversy regarding the tensions between the principles underlying Academe on the one hand, and the free market on the other. Its outspoken thesis posits that seemingly irresistible institutional pressures are betraying a core principle of the Enlightenment: that the free pursuit of knowledge is of the highest value in its own right. As ‘market principles’ are forced on universities, inducing a neoteric culture of ‘managerialism’, many worry that the very characteristics that made European higher education in particular such a success are being eroded and replaced by ideological opportunism and economic expediency. Richly interdisciplinary, the anthology explores a wealth of issues such as the phenomenon of bibliometrics (linking an institution’s success to the volume and visibility of publications produced). Many argue that the use of such indicators to measure scientific value is inimical to the time-consuming complexities of genuine truth-seeking. A number of the greatest discoveries and innovations in the history of science, such as Newton’s laws of mechanics or the Mendelian laws of inheritance, might never have seen the light of day if today’s system of determining and defining the form and content of science had dominated. With analytical perspectives from political science, economics, philosophy and media studies, the collection interrogates, for example, the doctrine of graduate employability that exerts such a powerful influence on course type and structure, especially on technical and professional training. In contrast, the liberal arts must choose between adaptation to the dictates of employability strategies or wither away as enrollments dwindle and resources evaporate. Research projects and aims have also become an area of controversy, with many governments now assessing the value of proposals in terms of assumed commercial benefits. The contributors argue that these changes, as well as ‘reforms’ in the managerial and administrative structures in tertiary education, constitute a radical break with the previous ontology of science and scholarship: a change in its very character, and not merely its form. It shows that the ‘scientific thinking’ students, researchers, and scholars are encouraged to adopt is undergoing a rapid shift in conceptual content, with significant consequences not only for science, but also for the society of which it is a part.

The Breakdown of Scientific Thought

Transformations in Research, Higher Education and the Academic Market

Hakan Hakansson

In this book, the story of how IKEA and its paper producers struggled to solve the problem of creating environmentally friendly paper constitutes the foundation of a discussion of technological development. Through a detailed analysis of the case-study, the authors demonstrate the necessity of including social, technological and economical factors when dealing with such issues. Focusing on the interactive aspects of commercial and technological development, they examine how new solutions are developed and shaped in relation to the different companies and organizations involved. They investigate resources in terms of how they are related and built into other resources through historical and contemporary interaction processes. Their overall emphasis is on dealing with the issue of how different, closely and distantly related companies and organizations are affected when resources are developed.

Debbie Harrison

This book is the result of a seminar in Spring 2003 that brought together senior marketing Professors from both Europe and the US. The seminar is part of project funded for 4 - 5 years to discuss the future of marketing. Three basic issues are addressed: How should we look at the market and its different forms, given the existence of dynamics? How should we look upon the exchange between market players given the existence of relationships and other close cooperative efforts? What kind of scientific approaches can we use when studying markets and market players? Following a comprehensive discussion of these issues the book concludes by reexamining existing theories in light of these new ideas, challenging existing ways of thinking and looking towards a new future for marketing.

Alexandra Waluszewski

About

Books

Join the club