Zoltan J. Acs
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148625
- eISBN:
- 9781400846818
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148625.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter describes the system of opportunity creation in the United States, which has been a series of inventions and reinventions of the means by which opportunity has been provided. It begins ...
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This chapter describes the system of opportunity creation in the United States, which has been a series of inventions and reinventions of the means by which opportunity has been provided. It begins with a historical background on efforts to suppress opportunity—or at least keep a monopoly hold on it—particularly in Britain. It then considers how opportunity has been embedded in American-style capitalism in two fundamental ways. The first is by equipping individuals with the skills they need to participate in capitalism; the second relates to the functioning of innovation and markets, and to the ability of new industries, firms, and jobs to challenge the status quo—namely, creative destruction. It also highlights the fundamental tension between wealth creation and maintaining economic opportunity. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role played by schools and education reformers in the history of opportunity and opportunity creation in America.Less
This chapter describes the system of opportunity creation in the United States, which has been a series of inventions and reinventions of the means by which opportunity has been provided. It begins with a historical background on efforts to suppress opportunity—or at least keep a monopoly hold on it—particularly in Britain. It then considers how opportunity has been embedded in American-style capitalism in two fundamental ways. The first is by equipping individuals with the skills they need to participate in capitalism; the second relates to the functioning of innovation and markets, and to the ability of new industries, firms, and jobs to challenge the status quo—namely, creative destruction. It also highlights the fundamental tension between wealth creation and maintaining economic opportunity. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role played by schools and education reformers in the history of opportunity and opportunity creation in America.
Grzegorz W. Kolodko
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198297437
- eISBN:
- 9780191685354
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198297437.003.0005
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
In order to examine the conditions where equilibrium between demand and supply takes place, this chapter establishes the connection of individual expectations and the understanding of the ...
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In order to examine the conditions where equilibrium between demand and supply takes place, this chapter establishes the connection of individual expectations and the understanding of the implementation of trade liberalisation and structural stabilisation, which resulted in the widespread financial depression and political chaos in the 1990s. Also, shortcomings in policy planning and execution as well as drawbacks of ineffective execution of the ‘shock therapy’ and the ‘creative destruction’ are taken into consideration. Legal practitioners, government officials, and other concerned individuals took relief methods to counteract these consequences through collaboration of the strengths and resolution of the flaws of planned systems and free market. Another technique is the alteration on the regulations about property rights and production means and results.Less
In order to examine the conditions where equilibrium between demand and supply takes place, this chapter establishes the connection of individual expectations and the understanding of the implementation of trade liberalisation and structural stabilisation, which resulted in the widespread financial depression and political chaos in the 1990s. Also, shortcomings in policy planning and execution as well as drawbacks of ineffective execution of the ‘shock therapy’ and the ‘creative destruction’ are taken into consideration. Legal practitioners, government officials, and other concerned individuals took relief methods to counteract these consequences through collaboration of the strengths and resolution of the flaws of planned systems and free market. Another technique is the alteration on the regulations about property rights and production means and results.
Alan Liu
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226486987
- eISBN:
- 9780226487007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226487007.003.0016
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The rationale of contemporary knowledge work is “creative destruction,” with the emphasis on “creative” and almost no serious reflection on “destruction.” The question of a future aesthetics is the ...
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The rationale of contemporary knowledge work is “creative destruction,” with the emphasis on “creative” and almost no serious reflection on “destruction.” The question of a future aesthetics is the question of the general legitimation of art in such an age of creative destruction. What is the function of the creative arts in a world of perpetually “innovative” information and knowledge work? The special potential of the arts in the age of knowledge work may well be to complement the humanities lesson that “cool has a history” with the crucial inverse of that lesson: history can be cool. Cool à la mode—the cool of the instantaneous present—can no longer be the exclusive obsession of knowledge workers. In the age of “creative destruction,” the sense of history will also need to be cool. This chapter looks at viral aesthetics and the potential of the new aesthetics of “destructive creativity” in the information age.Less
The rationale of contemporary knowledge work is “creative destruction,” with the emphasis on “creative” and almost no serious reflection on “destruction.” The question of a future aesthetics is the question of the general legitimation of art in such an age of creative destruction. What is the function of the creative arts in a world of perpetually “innovative” information and knowledge work? The special potential of the arts in the age of knowledge work may well be to complement the humanities lesson that “cool has a history” with the crucial inverse of that lesson: history can be cool. Cool à la mode—the cool of the instantaneous present—can no longer be the exclusive obsession of knowledge workers. In the age of “creative destruction,” the sense of history will also need to be cool. This chapter looks at viral aesthetics and the potential of the new aesthetics of “destructive creativity” in the information age.
Zoltan J. Acs
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148625
- eISBN:
- 9781400846818
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148625.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter examines wealth creation as a defining feature of capitalism. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, American research universities have increasingly moved to the forefront of ...
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This chapter examines wealth creation as a defining feature of capitalism. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, American research universities have increasingly moved to the forefront of innovation, playing a more critical role in developing new technologies used by large companies and entrepreneurs. In recent decades, one university and one region in particular have become almost synonymous with knowledge creation and the high-tech industry: Stanford University and Silicon Valley. The chapter shows how Leland Stanford and his contemporaries helped forge the relationship between creative destruction in the American economy and the institutions that promote opportunity. It considers how the economic openness that allowed entrepreneurs to accumulate fortunes has also nurtured social institutions, such as universities and foundations. It also discusses the issue of income inequality, the dilemma of what to do with wealth, the distinction between charity and philanthropy.Less
This chapter examines wealth creation as a defining feature of capitalism. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, American research universities have increasingly moved to the forefront of innovation, playing a more critical role in developing new technologies used by large companies and entrepreneurs. In recent decades, one university and one region in particular have become almost synonymous with knowledge creation and the high-tech industry: Stanford University and Silicon Valley. The chapter shows how Leland Stanford and his contemporaries helped forge the relationship between creative destruction in the American economy and the institutions that promote opportunity. It considers how the economic openness that allowed entrepreneurs to accumulate fortunes has also nurtured social institutions, such as universities and foundations. It also discusses the issue of income inequality, the dilemma of what to do with wealth, the distinction between charity and philanthropy.
Michael H. Best
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198297451
- eISBN:
- 9780191595967
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198297459.003.0005
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic Systems
Boston's Route 128 illustrates the concepts of regional technology capability, technology genealogy, and technology roadmap. Precision machining and complex product systems are regional technological ...
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Boston's Route 128 illustrates the concepts of regional technology capability, technology genealogy, and technology roadmap. Precision machining and complex product systems are regional technological capabilities that have been redefined, and product applications have evolved through a series of technology domain transitions from the mechanical to the electrical and electronic, and via an extension of Moore's Law into the age of nanotechnology and self‐assembly processes. Old industries have gone and new industries have emerged through a regional systems integration process reminiscent of Schumpeterian ‘creative destruction’. The recent transition from a vertical integration to an open‐systems business model has fostered a regional capability to rapidly integrate and reintegrate activities and technologies required for rapid new product development in complex product systems.Less
Boston's Route 128 illustrates the concepts of regional technology capability, technology genealogy, and technology roadmap. Precision machining and complex product systems are regional technological capabilities that have been redefined, and product applications have evolved through a series of technology domain transitions from the mechanical to the electrical and electronic, and via an extension of Moore's Law into the age of nanotechnology and self‐assembly processes. Old industries have gone and new industries have emerged through a regional systems integration process reminiscent of Schumpeterian ‘creative destruction’. The recent transition from a vertical integration to an open‐systems business model has fostered a regional capability to rapidly integrate and reintegrate activities and technologies required for rapid new product development in complex product systems.
Kathy Fogel, Randall Morck, and Bernard Yeung
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262016018
- eISBN:
- 9780262298650
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016018.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Economy
The Schumpeterian view of the association of economic growth and creative destruction, a process in which innovative and commercially successful firms destroy large established dominant firms, has ...
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The Schumpeterian view of the association of economic growth and creative destruction, a process in which innovative and commercially successful firms destroy large established dominant firms, has been substantially validated in recent years. Macroeconomic models of managerial entrenchment have implications for wider economic growth. If a country, in its aim to protect its large established champions from creative destruction, neglects rapidly growing new upstart firms and hinders innovators, it is said to be basically compromising its long-term economic growth. Corporate routines are considered to provide significant innovation that leads to creative destruction; however, it has been found that corporate control turnovers do not lead to change in routines. This chapter examines the dynamic effects of national champions and also measures correlation between these champions and economic growth in standard cross-country growth regressions; the authors posit that there is a negative relationship between capital accumulation and control turnover.Less
The Schumpeterian view of the association of economic growth and creative destruction, a process in which innovative and commercially successful firms destroy large established dominant firms, has been substantially validated in recent years. Macroeconomic models of managerial entrenchment have implications for wider economic growth. If a country, in its aim to protect its large established champions from creative destruction, neglects rapidly growing new upstart firms and hinders innovators, it is said to be basically compromising its long-term economic growth. Corporate routines are considered to provide significant innovation that leads to creative destruction; however, it has been found that corporate control turnovers do not lead to change in routines. This chapter examines the dynamic effects of national champions and also measures correlation between these champions and economic growth in standard cross-country growth regressions; the authors posit that there is a negative relationship between capital accumulation and control turnover.
Alan Liu
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226486987
- eISBN:
- 9780226487007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226487007.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Cultural criticism has been brutally effective in demonstrating that the churning of literary capital has always been a part of the world of literature. A distinctive form of that churning in ...
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Cultural criticism has been brutally effective in demonstrating that the churning of literary capital has always been a part of the world of literature. A distinctive form of that churning in relation to the general economic and social churning is what Joseph A. Schumpeter, in his classic phrase about capitalism, called “creative destruction.” This book is a study of the cultural life of information or, more broadly, of contemporary “knowledge work.” It explores the role of literature in that cultural life and the future of the literary when the true aestheticism unbound of knowledge work—as seen on innumerable web pages—is “cool.” Cool is the techno-informatic vanishing point of contemporary aesthetics, psychology, morality, politics, spirituality, and everything. The book offers a historical sketch of knowledge work and a theoretical frame for investigating its culture of cool. It then follows up with an argument about the role of humanities education and the arts in the world of cool. This latter argument turns on the general character of historical and aesthetic knowledge in the information age.Less
Cultural criticism has been brutally effective in demonstrating that the churning of literary capital has always been a part of the world of literature. A distinctive form of that churning in relation to the general economic and social churning is what Joseph A. Schumpeter, in his classic phrase about capitalism, called “creative destruction.” This book is a study of the cultural life of information or, more broadly, of contemporary “knowledge work.” It explores the role of literature in that cultural life and the future of the literary when the true aestheticism unbound of knowledge work—as seen on innumerable web pages—is “cool.” Cool is the techno-informatic vanishing point of contemporary aesthetics, psychology, morality, politics, spirituality, and everything. The book offers a historical sketch of knowledge work and a theoretical frame for investigating its culture of cool. It then follows up with an argument about the role of humanities education and the arts in the world of cool. This latter argument turns on the general character of historical and aesthetic knowledge in the information age.
Arthur M., Jr. Diamond
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- June 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190263669
- eISBN:
- 9780190263706
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190263669.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Microeconomics
Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism shows how life improves under the economic system often called “entrepreneurial capitalism” or “creative destruction,” but more ...
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Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism shows how life improves under the economic system often called “entrepreneurial capitalism” or “creative destruction,” but more accurately called “innovative dynamism.” The book describes how, in such a system, innovation occurs through the efforts of inventors and innovative entrepreneurs, how workers on balance benefit, and how good policies can encourage innovation. The inventors and innovative entrepreneurs are often cognitively diverse outsiders with the courage and perseverance to see and pursue serendipitous discoveries or slow hunches. Economies grow where innovative dynamism flourishes through leapfrog competition, as in the United States from roughly 1830 to 1930. Consumers vote with their feet for innovative new goods and for process innovations that reduce prices, benefiting ordinary citizens more than the privileged elites. Some labor-market fears are unjustified, since more and better new jobs are created than are destroyed; other fears can be mitigated by better policies. Since breakthrough inventions are costly and difficult, patents can be fair rewards for invention and can provide funding to enable future inventions. At the key early stage of most breakthrough innovations, when innovative ideas are hardest to communicate and most widely doubted, the innovations are largely self-funded. The steady growth in regulations, often defended on the basis of the precautionary principle, increases the costs of innovation for the entrepreneur. Secular (long-term) stagnation is due to bad policies, not to having picked the low-hanging fruit, as illustrated by innovative medical entrepreneurs who are constrained from bringing us quicker and better cures for cancer.Less
Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism shows how life improves under the economic system often called “entrepreneurial capitalism” or “creative destruction,” but more accurately called “innovative dynamism.” The book describes how, in such a system, innovation occurs through the efforts of inventors and innovative entrepreneurs, how workers on balance benefit, and how good policies can encourage innovation. The inventors and innovative entrepreneurs are often cognitively diverse outsiders with the courage and perseverance to see and pursue serendipitous discoveries or slow hunches. Economies grow where innovative dynamism flourishes through leapfrog competition, as in the United States from roughly 1830 to 1930. Consumers vote with their feet for innovative new goods and for process innovations that reduce prices, benefiting ordinary citizens more than the privileged elites. Some labor-market fears are unjustified, since more and better new jobs are created than are destroyed; other fears can be mitigated by better policies. Since breakthrough inventions are costly and difficult, patents can be fair rewards for invention and can provide funding to enable future inventions. At the key early stage of most breakthrough innovations, when innovative ideas are hardest to communicate and most widely doubted, the innovations are largely self-funded. The steady growth in regulations, often defended on the basis of the precautionary principle, increases the costs of innovation for the entrepreneur. Secular (long-term) stagnation is due to bad policies, not to having picked the low-hanging fruit, as illustrated by innovative medical entrepreneurs who are constrained from bringing us quicker and better cures for cancer.
János Kornai
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199334766
- eISBN:
- 9780199369416
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199334766.003.0003
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic Systems
This chapter argues that despite capitalism’s built-in propensity for entrepreneurship, innovation, and dynamism, it a just a propensity, a disposition, and thus not a sure thing. It is the social, ...
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This chapter argues that despite capitalism’s built-in propensity for entrepreneurship, innovation, and dynamism, it a just a propensity, a disposition, and thus not a sure thing. It is the social, political, and legal environment created by human beings that influence how far and how quickly the propensity is breaking through. It depends on the business climate, and to a large extent, on the courage, inspiration, and competence of individuals who might become entrepreneurs. The chapter presents stories behind the introduction of revolutionary new products, including Skype. It also discusses the causal relationship between capitalism and the availability of phone services; and the term “creative destruction”, which describes the two inseparable sides of fast technical progress.Less
This chapter argues that despite capitalism’s built-in propensity for entrepreneurship, innovation, and dynamism, it a just a propensity, a disposition, and thus not a sure thing. It is the social, political, and legal environment created by human beings that influence how far and how quickly the propensity is breaking through. It depends on the business climate, and to a large extent, on the courage, inspiration, and competence of individuals who might become entrepreneurs. The chapter presents stories behind the introduction of revolutionary new products, including Skype. It also discusses the causal relationship between capitalism and the availability of phone services; and the term “creative destruction”, which describes the two inseparable sides of fast technical progress.
John J. Betancur and Janet L. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040504
- eISBN:
- 9780252098949
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040504.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This chapter offers a historical account of how Englewood—a South Side neighborhood that went from white to black and from middle-class to poor—became a ghetto. More specifically, it examines the ...
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This chapter offers a historical account of how Englewood—a South Side neighborhood that went from white to black and from middle-class to poor—became a ghetto. More specifically, it examines the material and representational construction of Englewood by focusing on two major moments that helped produce its current space: the production of “normal” and prosperous white Englewood followed by the production of abnormal and poor black Englewood. After providing an overview of neighborhood change in Englewood, the chapter considers how creative destruction and spatial racism worked to transform it into a ghetto and a carceral space. It then explores how Englewood has become a preferred site for police experimentation and training using ever more force and different schemes of discipline and punishment. It also discusses resident actions that are engagements in power relations and thus forms of resistance and self-determination pushing back the dominant power.Less
This chapter offers a historical account of how Englewood—a South Side neighborhood that went from white to black and from middle-class to poor—became a ghetto. More specifically, it examines the material and representational construction of Englewood by focusing on two major moments that helped produce its current space: the production of “normal” and prosperous white Englewood followed by the production of abnormal and poor black Englewood. After providing an overview of neighborhood change in Englewood, the chapter considers how creative destruction and spatial racism worked to transform it into a ghetto and a carceral space. It then explores how Englewood has become a preferred site for police experimentation and training using ever more force and different schemes of discipline and punishment. It also discusses resident actions that are engagements in power relations and thus forms of resistance and self-determination pushing back the dominant power.
Mark Metzler
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451799
- eISBN:
- 9780801467912
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451799.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
Joseph Schumpeter's conceptions of entrepreneurship, innovation, and creative destruction have been hugely influential. He pioneered the study of economic development and of technological paradigm ...
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Joseph Schumpeter's conceptions of entrepreneurship, innovation, and creative destruction have been hugely influential. He pioneered the study of economic development and of technological paradigm shifts and was a forerunner of the emerging field of evolutionary economics. He is not thought of as a theorist of credit-supercharged high-speed growth, but this is what he became in postwar Japan. As this book shows, economists and planners in postwar Japan seized upon Schumpeter's ideas and put them directly to work. The inflationary creation of credit, as theorized by Schumpeter, was a vital but mostly unrecognized aspect of the successful stabilization of Japanese capitalism after World War II and was integral to Japan's postwar success. It also helps to explain Japan's bubble, and the global bubbles that have followed it. The heterodox analysis presented in the book goes beyond the economic history of postwar Japan; it opens up a new view of the core circuits of modern capital in general.Less
Joseph Schumpeter's conceptions of entrepreneurship, innovation, and creative destruction have been hugely influential. He pioneered the study of economic development and of technological paradigm shifts and was a forerunner of the emerging field of evolutionary economics. He is not thought of as a theorist of credit-supercharged high-speed growth, but this is what he became in postwar Japan. As this book shows, economists and planners in postwar Japan seized upon Schumpeter's ideas and put them directly to work. The inflationary creation of credit, as theorized by Schumpeter, was a vital but mostly unrecognized aspect of the successful stabilization of Japanese capitalism after World War II and was integral to Japan's postwar success. It also helps to explain Japan's bubble, and the global bubbles that have followed it. The heterodox analysis presented in the book goes beyond the economic history of postwar Japan; it opens up a new view of the core circuits of modern capital in general.
Calestous Juma
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190467036
- eISBN:
- 9780190627164
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190467036.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics, Political Economy
The new millennium brought a rising tide of economic, social, and ecological challenges. This chapter argues that while rapid technological adoption in response to mounting global challenges is ...
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The new millennium brought a rising tide of economic, social, and ecological challenges. This chapter argues that while rapid technological adoption in response to mounting global challenges is welcomed by large sections of society, it also triggers societal responses that seek to slow down the influence of technological change. The fear of loss, not novelty, underlies social tensions over technologies, some of which take the form of outright opposition by segments of society against change. Fear of loss can lead individuals or groups to avoid change brought by innovation even if that means forgoing gains. But much of the concern is driven by perceptions of loss, not necessarily by concrete evidence of loss. The fear or perception of loss may take material forms, but it also includes intellectual and psychological factors such as challenges to established worldviews or identity.Less
The new millennium brought a rising tide of economic, social, and ecological challenges. This chapter argues that while rapid technological adoption in response to mounting global challenges is welcomed by large sections of society, it also triggers societal responses that seek to slow down the influence of technological change. The fear of loss, not novelty, underlies social tensions over technologies, some of which take the form of outright opposition by segments of society against change. Fear of loss can lead individuals or groups to avoid change brought by innovation even if that means forgoing gains. But much of the concern is driven by perceptions of loss, not necessarily by concrete evidence of loss. The fear or perception of loss may take material forms, but it also includes intellectual and psychological factors such as challenges to established worldviews or identity.
Joshua Gans
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262034487
- eISBN:
- 9780262333832
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034487.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Innovation
When successful and well-managed firms fail, we call this disruption. In the almost two decades since Clay Christensen’s famous treatise mapping this phenomenon, such failure has continued, with ...
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When successful and well-managed firms fail, we call this disruption. In the almost two decades since Clay Christensen’s famous treatise mapping this phenomenon, such failure has continued, with companies such as Encyclopedia Britannica, Blockbuster, Nokia, and RIM all falling hard from positions of seemingly unassailable dominance. In each case, they either did not or could not respond to disruptive events that allowed new entrants to capture their markets. At the same time, however, other major firms have had sustained success, shielded from what could have been dominance-ending disruptive events. This book takes the experience of both the fallen and the resilient and identifies Disruption’s Shield, the principles and actions that can ensure great firms’ continued success. The headline theory of disruption is now known to all, but that has not alleviated the risks faced by major firms nor the litany of failures. This is because a good defense has to guard against all disruptive events. Up until now, only one set of disruptive forces – those coming from the demand-side – have been fully understood and driven into manager’s mindsets. But this single-minded focus has led many firms to neglect equally important supply-side forces. This type of disruption can occur when firms, focussing on developing new products based on current technologies quickly, find themselves inflexible and unresponsive when their greatest competitive threats come not from seemingly niche entrants but from technologies that re-write organizational rulebooks. Only by understanding both types of disruptive risk can business leaders understand, evaluate and deploy the full range of options to avoid disruption and continue to thrive. The Disruption Dilemma is the first book that puts all of these elements together. It identifies the system of choices that have allowed great firms to balance competitiveness and resilience.Less
When successful and well-managed firms fail, we call this disruption. In the almost two decades since Clay Christensen’s famous treatise mapping this phenomenon, such failure has continued, with companies such as Encyclopedia Britannica, Blockbuster, Nokia, and RIM all falling hard from positions of seemingly unassailable dominance. In each case, they either did not or could not respond to disruptive events that allowed new entrants to capture their markets. At the same time, however, other major firms have had sustained success, shielded from what could have been dominance-ending disruptive events. This book takes the experience of both the fallen and the resilient and identifies Disruption’s Shield, the principles and actions that can ensure great firms’ continued success. The headline theory of disruption is now known to all, but that has not alleviated the risks faced by major firms nor the litany of failures. This is because a good defense has to guard against all disruptive events. Up until now, only one set of disruptive forces – those coming from the demand-side – have been fully understood and driven into manager’s mindsets. But this single-minded focus has led many firms to neglect equally important supply-side forces. This type of disruption can occur when firms, focussing on developing new products based on current technologies quickly, find themselves inflexible and unresponsive when their greatest competitive threats come not from seemingly niche entrants but from technologies that re-write organizational rulebooks. Only by understanding both types of disruptive risk can business leaders understand, evaluate and deploy the full range of options to avoid disruption and continue to thrive. The Disruption Dilemma is the first book that puts all of these elements together. It identifies the system of choices that have allowed great firms to balance competitiveness and resilience.
James R. Otteson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190914202
- eISBN:
- 9780190914240
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190914202.003.0008
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability, Strategy
Chapters 7 and 8 look more carefully at a series of worries about, and objections raised to, business, markets, and commercial society generally. Chapter 7 looks specifically at concerns about how we ...
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Chapters 7 and 8 look more carefully at a series of worries about, and objections raised to, business, markets, and commercial society generally. Chapter 7 looks specifically at concerns about how we should treat people and whether markets and business are, or can be, consistent with proper relations among people. It examines the inequality to which markets can lead, considering in this connection G. A. Cohen’s famous “camping trip” scenario and his argument for “socialist equality of opportunity.” In contrast to Cohen’s “camping trip,” this chapter offers a “shipwrecked on an island” scenario, from which conclusions different from Cohen’s may be drawn. The chapter also examines the seeming unfairness of some of the outcomes of business activity, including in particular the undeserved luck involved. Finally, it explores the instability and displacement inherent in the “creative destruction” (in Schumpeter’s famous phrase) of markets, including its effects on human community.Less
Chapters 7 and 8 look more carefully at a series of worries about, and objections raised to, business, markets, and commercial society generally. Chapter 7 looks specifically at concerns about how we should treat people and whether markets and business are, or can be, consistent with proper relations among people. It examines the inequality to which markets can lead, considering in this connection G. A. Cohen’s famous “camping trip” scenario and his argument for “socialist equality of opportunity.” In contrast to Cohen’s “camping trip,” this chapter offers a “shipwrecked on an island” scenario, from which conclusions different from Cohen’s may be drawn. The chapter also examines the seeming unfairness of some of the outcomes of business activity, including in particular the undeserved luck involved. Finally, it explores the instability and displacement inherent in the “creative destruction” (in Schumpeter’s famous phrase) of markets, including its effects on human community.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226946634
- eISBN:
- 9780226946658
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226946658.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
In 1909, Metropolitan Life, the world's largest life insurer, completed the tallest tower in New York and in America. Shortly thereafter, the magnificent building suffered a series of catastrophes, ...
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In 1909, Metropolitan Life, the world's largest life insurer, completed the tallest tower in New York and in America. Shortly thereafter, the magnificent building suffered a series of catastrophes, such as being struck by the tail of a comet, exposed to poisonous gases, and submerged under an ocean. Despite these debacles, the building somehow remained standing in apparent perpetuity. The motif of the ruin became firmly identified with the emerging genre of science fiction and the skyscrapers of New York City. The notion of modern skyscrapers as antiquated ruins was belied by Manhattan's economic geography. The skyscraper's lifespan appeared to be limited by economic even more than technological and aesthetic obsolescence. Critics who coined the terms “doctrine of the scrap heap” or “perpetual motion quest,” which anticipate later critiques of creative destruction, remained largely ambivalent about, rather than overtly critical of, the skyscraper's troubled economic status. One writer who held architecture to higher standards and denounce the reduction of the office building to an economic problem was Henry James.Less
In 1909, Metropolitan Life, the world's largest life insurer, completed the tallest tower in New York and in America. Shortly thereafter, the magnificent building suffered a series of catastrophes, such as being struck by the tail of a comet, exposed to poisonous gases, and submerged under an ocean. Despite these debacles, the building somehow remained standing in apparent perpetuity. The motif of the ruin became firmly identified with the emerging genre of science fiction and the skyscrapers of New York City. The notion of modern skyscrapers as antiquated ruins was belied by Manhattan's economic geography. The skyscraper's lifespan appeared to be limited by economic even more than technological and aesthetic obsolescence. Critics who coined the terms “doctrine of the scrap heap” or “perpetual motion quest,” which anticipate later critiques of creative destruction, remained largely ambivalent about, rather than overtly critical of, the skyscraper's troubled economic status. One writer who held architecture to higher standards and denounce the reduction of the office building to an economic problem was Henry James.
David Biggs
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199489077
- eISBN:
- 9780199093908
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199489077.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
The environmental history of war, especially its impacts on landscape, encompasses a much broader scope than the conflicts and the historiography of the late twentieth century. Ideas on the social ...
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The environmental history of war, especially its impacts on landscape, encompasses a much broader scope than the conflicts and the historiography of the late twentieth century. Ideas on the social and environmental processes of conflict draw from a much longer, global discourse. This chapter uses the ancient-to-modern conflict landscape of central Vietnam to argue for a multi-layered, broader analysis of the environmental history of conflict.Less
The environmental history of war, especially its impacts on landscape, encompasses a much broader scope than the conflicts and the historiography of the late twentieth century. Ideas on the social and environmental processes of conflict draw from a much longer, global discourse. This chapter uses the ancient-to-modern conflict landscape of central Vietnam to argue for a multi-layered, broader analysis of the environmental history of conflict.
Venus Bivar
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469641188
- eISBN:
- 9781469641195
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469641188.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
The postwar French state struggled to find the right balance between quantity and quality in the agricultural sector. European integration and the general drive to modernize the French economy drove ...
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The postwar French state struggled to find the right balance between quantity and quality in the agricultural sector. European integration and the general drive to modernize the French economy drove French planners to push for greater productivity, while simultaneously drawing on the French reputation for quality artisanal production in order to market food stuffs to foreign consumers. The end result was a food system split between the big-box food store and the open-air market. This push for higher productivity launched a wave of Schumpeterian creative destruction that put many farmers out of business. One of the most important tools available to the proponents of agricultural industrialization was land use policy. Through the consolidation of holdings, farms achieved greater efficiency while farmers were pushed off their lands.Less
The postwar French state struggled to find the right balance between quantity and quality in the agricultural sector. European integration and the general drive to modernize the French economy drove French planners to push for greater productivity, while simultaneously drawing on the French reputation for quality artisanal production in order to market food stuffs to foreign consumers. The end result was a food system split between the big-box food store and the open-air market. This push for higher productivity launched a wave of Schumpeterian creative destruction that put many farmers out of business. One of the most important tools available to the proponents of agricultural industrialization was land use policy. Through the consolidation of holdings, farms achieved greater efficiency while farmers were pushed off their lands.
John J. Betancur and Janet L. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040504
- eISBN:
- 9780252098949
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040504.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This chapter examines how community development can be caught in the trappings of flexible accumulation and even contribute to the displacement of the people it claims to represent. Focusing on the ...
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This chapter examines how community development can be caught in the trappings of flexible accumulation and even contribute to the displacement of the people it claims to represent. Focusing on the process of social engineering vis-à-vis mixed-income housing that the Chicago Housing Authority has been advancing through its Plan for Transformation, the chapter shows how creative destruction and the production of space for accumulation complicates our interpretation of community development practice. It first considers five community development approaches in Chicago before discussing how race and income help create the ghetto as a particular form of homogenous space that requires intervention. It also discusses the ways in which the representation of mixed-income communities is being used to advance gentrification, to classify the poor as either deserving or undeserving, and to further push them into super-ghettoes or destabilized neighborhoods occupied by poor nonwhites.Less
This chapter examines how community development can be caught in the trappings of flexible accumulation and even contribute to the displacement of the people it claims to represent. Focusing on the process of social engineering vis-à-vis mixed-income housing that the Chicago Housing Authority has been advancing through its Plan for Transformation, the chapter shows how creative destruction and the production of space for accumulation complicates our interpretation of community development practice. It first considers five community development approaches in Chicago before discussing how race and income help create the ghetto as a particular form of homogenous space that requires intervention. It also discusses the ways in which the representation of mixed-income communities is being used to advance gentrification, to classify the poor as either deserving or undeserving, and to further push them into super-ghettoes or destabilized neighborhoods occupied by poor nonwhites.
John J. Betancur and Janet L. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040504
- eISBN:
- 9780252098949
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040504.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This chapter examines how the transformation of public housing leads to neighborhood change by focusing on two Chicago neighborhoods: Cabrini Green on the Lower North Side and Lakefront Properties on ...
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This chapter examines how the transformation of public housing leads to neighborhood change by focusing on two Chicago neighborhoods: Cabrini Green on the Lower North Side and Lakefront Properties on the South Side. More specifically, it considers how each neighborhood was transformed over decades into a space of flexible accumulation in which to build new mixed-income communities. It first reviews the U.S. housing policy that made transformation necessary and goes on to show how policy implementation controlled to some extent the market forces that normally shape the cycles of creative destruction over time, while also making accumulation and commodification more surgical and calculating in the two neighborhoods. It also demonstrates how social science research in combination with public policy and market mechanisms can result in the gentrification of the public housing ghetto. It argues that public housing residents—the presumed beneficiaries—can be contained and diminished in both the physical and social space of Chicago.Less
This chapter examines how the transformation of public housing leads to neighborhood change by focusing on two Chicago neighborhoods: Cabrini Green on the Lower North Side and Lakefront Properties on the South Side. More specifically, it considers how each neighborhood was transformed over decades into a space of flexible accumulation in which to build new mixed-income communities. It first reviews the U.S. housing policy that made transformation necessary and goes on to show how policy implementation controlled to some extent the market forces that normally shape the cycles of creative destruction over time, while also making accumulation and commodification more surgical and calculating in the two neighborhoods. It also demonstrates how social science research in combination with public policy and market mechanisms can result in the gentrification of the public housing ghetto. It argues that public housing residents—the presumed beneficiaries—can be contained and diminished in both the physical and social space of Chicago.
John Toye
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198723349
- eISBN:
- 9780191789786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198723349.003.0011
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
Many writers on development are extremists, either venerating it as the source of economic cornucopia and human fulfilment or denouncing it as bringing loss of authentic community and culture, ...
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Many writers on development are extremists, either venerating it as the source of economic cornucopia and human fulfilment or denouncing it as bringing loss of authentic community and culture, greater exploitation, and the curtailment of liberty. A minority, however, have taken a more nuanced and ambivalent position—that, like the curate’s egg, development is good in parts. For example, Adam Ferguson acknowledged the benefits of commercial society but warned against the infinite expansion of human wants, increasing inequality, and the loss of community cohesion. Similar emphasis on the mixed results of development arises in the work of J. S. Mill, Friedrich Engels, and Joseph Schumpeter (‘creative destruction’). In more recent times Albert Hirschman pointed out the negative externalities such as environmental pollution caused by economic production growth—but man-made global climate change is a newer version. All change creates both winners and losers and this fuels the extreme evaluation of it.Less
Many writers on development are extremists, either venerating it as the source of economic cornucopia and human fulfilment or denouncing it as bringing loss of authentic community and culture, greater exploitation, and the curtailment of liberty. A minority, however, have taken a more nuanced and ambivalent position—that, like the curate’s egg, development is good in parts. For example, Adam Ferguson acknowledged the benefits of commercial society but warned against the infinite expansion of human wants, increasing inequality, and the loss of community cohesion. Similar emphasis on the mixed results of development arises in the work of J. S. Mill, Friedrich Engels, and Joseph Schumpeter (‘creative destruction’). In more recent times Albert Hirschman pointed out the negative externalities such as environmental pollution caused by economic production growth—but man-made global climate change is a newer version. All change creates both winners and losers and this fuels the extreme evaluation of it.
