Ruut Veenhoven – World Database of Happiness

“Happiness is a highly valued matter. Most people agree that it is better to enjoy life than to suffer, and endorse public policies that aim at creating greater happiness for a greater number of people. Though not everybody accepts the utilitarian axiom that happiness is ultimately the only value, the desirability of happiness as such is almost undisputed. This appears in high ranks for happiness in survey studies about value priorities.

Michael Tushman & Philip Anderson – Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments

“Technology can be defined as those tools, devices, and knowledge that mediate between inputs and outputs (process technology) and/or that create new products or services (product technology) (Rosenberg, 1972). Technological change has an unequivocal impact on economic growth (Solow, 1957; Klein, 1984)and on the development of industries (Lawrence and Dyer, 1983).The impact of technology and technological change on environmental conditions is, however, less clear.

Klaus Schwab (WEF) – Global Competitiveness Report

“The Global Competitiveness Report 2013–2014 is being released at a time when the world economy is undergoing significant shifts. The global financial crisis and the ensuing developments have heightened the role of emerging economies in the global context.This has accelerated the major economic transformations already underway, which have fueled rapid growth and lifted millions of people out of poverty. Yet, although the global economy’s prospects are more positive than they were when we released last year’s Report, growth has begun to slow across many emerging economies, and advanced economies in Europe and elsewhere continue to struggle.

Sood & Tellis – Technological Evolution and Radical Innovation

“Technological change is perhaps the most powerful engine of growth in markets today. To harness this source of growth, firms need answers to key questions about the dynamics of technological change: (1) How do new technologies evolve? (2) How do rival technologies compete? and (3) How do firms deal with technological evolution?

Helga Nowotny – Insatiable Curiosity

“An innovative idea is recognizable by the fact that it surprises. The greater the surprise, the more innovative the idea. But innovations do not consist solely of ideas, even if ideas are where they start from. Innovations are tied to the respective context.They consist in the recognition and implementation of new possibilities that reach beyond the tested or accustomed routine. They are defined by their success, which consists in opening up new spaces for activity, whether in connection with technological products, new markets, organizational adjustments, or other social arrangements.

Colarelli O’Connor & McDermott – The Human Side of Radical Innovation

“Radical, breakthrough, discontinuous, step out, horizon 3, gamechanging innovation are all labels adopted in the academic literature and management practice to identify projects whose objectives are to create new to the world offerings and, concomitantly, whole new lines of business for companies. They are distinguished not only by the promise of reward they offer, which is not only large in scope and strategically important to the corporation in terms of organizational renewal, but also by the risk and uncertainty that accompanies their potential outcome.

Laperche, Uzunidis & Tunzelmann – The Genesis of Innovation

“Knowledge and innovation are the two main resources of contemporary capitalism. To study and understand these roles, it is first helpful to draw on the theory of systems. Technological innovation cannot be understood when isolated from its context. Putting innovation in perspective requires a holistic and systemic approach: new technologies, new products, but also new markets, new organization and new management practices.

Pierre Bourdieu – The Market of Symbolic Goods

The Logic of Process Automization

“Dominated by external sources of legitimacy throughout the middle ages, part of the Renaissance and, in the case of French court life, throughout the classical age, intellectual and artistic life has progressively freed itself from aristocratic and ecclesiastical tutelage as well as from its aesthetic and ethical demands. This process is correlated with the constant growth of a public of potential consumers, of increasing social diversity, which guarantee the producers of symbolic goods minimal conditions of economic independence and, also, a competing principle of legitimacy.

Frederick W. Taylor – The Principles of Scientific Management

“President Roosevelt, in his address to the Governors at the White House, prophetically remarked that “The conservation of our national resources is only preliminary to the larger question of national efficiency.” The whole country at once recognized the importance of conserving our material resources and a large movement has been started which will be effective in accomplishing this object.

Jürgen Habermas – Reason and the Rationalization of Society

“The rationality of beliefs and actions is a theme usually dealt with in philosophy. One could even say that philosophical thought originates in reflection on the reason embodied in cognition, speech, and action; and reason remains its basic theme. From the beginning philosophy has endeavored to explain the world as a whole, the unity in the multiplicity of appearances, with principles to be discovered in reason-and not in communication with a divinity beyond the world nor, strictly speaking, even in returning to the ground of a cosmos encompassing nature and society.

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