Technologies in Decline Koretsky, Zahar; Stegmaier, Peter; Turnheim, Bruno ...
2023, 20221230, 2022-12-30
eBook, Book
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The central questions of this book are how technologies decline, how societies deal with technologies in decline, and how governance may be explicitly oriented towards parting with ‘undesirable’ ...technology. Surprisingly, these questions are fairly novel. Thus far, the dominant interest in historical, economic, sociological and political studies of technology has been to understand how novelty emerges, how innovation can open up new opportunities and how such processes may be supported. This innovation bias reflects how in the last centuries modern societies have embraced technology as a vehicle of progress. It is timely, however, to broaden the social study of technology and society: next to considering the rise of technologies, their fall should be addressed, too. Dealing with technologies in decline is an important challenge or our times, as socio-technical systems are increasingly part of the problems of climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequalities and geo-political tensions. This volume presents empirical studies of technologies in decline, as well as conceptual clarifications and theoretical deepening. Technologies in Decline presents an emerging research agenda for the study of technological decline, emphasising the need for a plurality of perspectives. Given that destabilisation and discontinuation are seen as a way to accelerate sustainability transitions, this book will be of interest to academics, students and policy makers researching and working in the areas of sustainability science and policy, economic geography, innovation studies, and science and technology studies.
GDP Coyle, Diane; Coyle, Diane
2014., 20140223, 2015-09-22
eBook
Why did the size of the U.S. economy increase by 3 percent on one day in mid-2013-or Ghana's balloon by 60 percent overnight in 2010? Why did the U.K. financial industry show its fastest expansion ...ever at the end of 2008-just as the world's financial system went into meltdown? And why was Greece's chief statistician charged with treason in 2013 for apparently doing nothing more than trying to accurately report the size of his country's economy? The answers to all these questions lie in the way we define and measure national economies around the world: Gross Domestic Product. This entertaining and informative book tells the story of GDP, making sense of a statistic that appears constantly in the news, business, and politics, and that seems to rule our lives-but that hardly anyone actually understands.
Diane Coyle traces the history of this artificial, abstract, complex, but exceedingly important statistic from its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century precursors through its invention in the 1940s and its postwar golden age, and then through the Great Crash up to today. The reader learns why this standard measure of the size of a country's economy was invented, how it has changed over the decades, and what its strengths and weaknesses are. The book explains why even small changes in GDP can decide elections, influence major political decisions, and determine whether countries can keep borrowing or be thrown into recession. The book ends by making the case that GDP was a good measure for the twentieth century but is increasingly inappropriate for a twenty-first-century economy driven by innovation, services, and intangible goods.
Does being green facilitate product innovation? This study examines whether green management in firms operating in China fosters radical product innovation to a greater extent than it does ...incremental product innovation and investigates the underlying institutional mechanisms involved in the relationship between green management and product innovation. The findings show that green management is more likely to lead to radical product innovation than to incremental product innovation. Moreover, government support as a formal institutional benefit more strongly mediates the effect of green management on radical product innovation than its effect on incremental product innovation; whereas social legitimacy as an informal institutional benefit more strongly mediates the effect of green management on incremental product innovation than its effect on radical product innovation. These findings provide important implications for explaining how firms employ green management to facilitate product innovation.
Green product innovation has been recognized as one of the key factors to achieve growth, environmental sustainability, and a better quality of life. Understanding green product innovation as a ...result of interaction between innovation and sustainability has become a strategic priority for theory and practice. This article investigates green product innovation by means of a multiple case study analysis of 12 small to medium size manufacturing companies based in Italy and Canada. First, we propose a conceptual framework that presents three key environmental dimensions of green product innovation such as energy minimization, materials reduction, and pollution prevention as identified in the life cycle phases of products. Based on insights gained from in-depth interviews, we discuss firms' motivations to develop green products, environmental policies and targets for products, different dimensions of green product innovation, and challenges faced during developing and marketing of green products. Results from the study are then synthesized and integrated in a toolbox that sheds light on various aspects of green product innovation and provides solutions to challenges and risks that are faced by firms. Finally, implications for managers, academia and public policy makers are discussed.
Designing products and product families so they may be customized for the global marketplace and achieving these goals in abbreviated time period, while maintaining production efficiencies are the ...keys to successful manufacturing operations. The research on these areas has matured rapidly over the last decade.Today's highly competitive and volatile marketplace is reshaping the way many companies do business as rapid innovation and mass customization offer a new form of competitive advantage. In response, companies like Sony, Black Decker, and Kodak have successfully implemented strategies to design and develop an entire family of products to satisfy a wide variety of customer requirements.Product Platform and Product Family Design: Methods and Applications discusses how product platform and product family design can be used successfully to:- Increase variety within a product line.- Shorten manufacturing lead times.- Reduce overall costs within a product line. The material available here will serve as both a reference and a hands-on guide for practitioners involved in the design, planning and production of products. Included are real-life case studies that explain the benefits of platform based product development.
A product-harm crisis is a discrete event in which products are found to be defective and therefore dangerous to at least part of the product’s customer base. Product-harm crises are not only ...dangerous for consumers; they also represent a major threat to the reputation and equity of brands or companies, which often struggle with how to best respond. The marketing literature has witnessed a surge in interest on the consequences of product-harm crises for a variety of stakeholders, including consumers, the brand or company itself, its investors, as well as competitors. This article offers a systematic review of research on product-harm crises in the marketing literature. We discuss the antecedents and consequences of product-harm crises, their moderators and mediators, and the theories and methodologies used. We identify commonalities and differences between the studies, as well as gaps in the literature and avenues for future research. Finally, we synthesize the managerial implications across studies.
There is a huge scarcity of good, practical resources for designers and students interested in minimising the environmental impacts of products.
Design + Environment
has been specifically written to ...address this paucity.
The book first provides background information to help the reader understand how and why design for environment (DfE) has become so critical to design, with reference to some of the most influential writers, designers and companies in the field. Next,
Design + Environment
provides a step-by-step approach on how to approach DfE: to design a product that meets requirements for quality, cost, manufacturability and consumer appeal, while at the same time minimising environmental impacts. The first step in the process is to undertake an assessment of environmental impacts, using life-cycle assessment (LCA) or one of the many simpler tools available to help the designer. From then on, DfE becomes an integral part of the normal design process, including the development of concepts, design of prototypes, final design and development of marketing strategies.
Environmental assessment tools and strategies to reduce environmental impacts, such as the selection of appropriate materials, are then discussed. Next, some of the links between environmental problems, such as global warming, ozone depletion, water and air pollution and the everyday products we consume are considered. In order to design products with minimal environmental impact, we need to have a basic understanding of these impacts and the interactions between them.
The four subsequent chapters provide more detailed strategies and case studies for particular product groups: packaging, textiles, furniture, and electrical and electronic products. Guidelines are provided for each of the critical stages of a product’s life, from the selection of raw materials through to strategies for recovery and recycling.
Finally,
Design + Environment
takes a look at some of the emerging trends in DfE that are offering us the opportunity to make a more significant reduction in environmental impacts. Both the development of more sustainable materials and technologies and the growing interest in leasing rather than selling products are examined.
Design + Environment
is organised as a workbook rather than an academic text. It should be read once, and then used as a key reference source. This clear and informative book will prove to be invaluable to practising designers, to course directors and their students in need of a core teaching and reference text and to all those interested in learning about the tools and trends influencing green product design.
The authors have all been involved in an innovative demonstration programme, ‘EcoReDesign™’, which was developed by the Centre for Design at RMIT University with funding from the Australian government. The Centre successfully collaborated with Australian companies to improve the environmental performance of their products by following DfE principles.
Sketching User Experiences approaches design and design thinking as something distinct that needs to be better understood—by both designers and the people with whom they need to work— in order to ...achieve success with new products and systems. So while the focus is on design, the approach is holistic. Hence, the book speaks to designers, usability specialists, the HCI community, product managers, and business executives. There is an emphasis on balancing the back- end concern with usability and engineering excellence (getting the design right) with an up-front investment in sketching and ideation (getting the right design). Overall, the objective is to build the notion of informed design: molding emerging technology into a form that serves our society and reflects its values. Grounded in both practice and scientific research, Bill Buxton's engaging work aims to spark the imagination while encouraging the use of new techniques, breathing new life into user experience design. * Covers sketching and early prototyping design methods suitable for dynamic product capabilities: cell phones that communicate with each other and other embedded systems, "smart" appliances, and things you only imagine in your dreams * Thorough coverage of the design sketching method which helps easily build experience prototypes—without the effort of engineering prototypes which are difficult to abandon * Reaches out to a range of designers, including user interface designers, industrial designers, software engineers, usability engineers, product managers, and others * Full of case studies, examples, exercises, and projects, and access to video clips that demonstrate the principles and methods
Drastic increases in the scale and complexity of engineered systems present many new challenges for the product development (PD) and engineering design communities. PD is characterized by the ...development of large, multidisciplinary, and networked systems that cannot be embraced by a single group or organization. Appropriate PD management principles can circumvent many of the difficulties that arise during the PD process. In this article, the author presents an integrative literature review that includes theories, models, and tools that can be used to manage complex PD. The review is structured around three PD analysis domains: product, people, and process. The review does not identify all the publications in any one PD domain, but instead addresses critical issues that exist within each domain and at the intersection of these domains. By reviewing these representative papers and creating a critical discussion around them, the intent is to provide an overview of the available theories, models, and tools for PD practitioners, while simultaneously identifying opportunities for future research.
Because no previous literature discusses the determinants of green product development performance, this study develops an original framework to fill the research gap. This study explores the ...influences of green dynamic capabilities and green transformational leadership on green product development performance and investigates the mediation role of green creativity. The results demonstrate that green dynamic capabilities and green transformational leadership positively influence green creativity and green product development performance. Besides, this study indicates that the positive relationships between green product development performance and their two antecedents—green dynamic capabilities and green transformational leadership—are partially mediated by green creativity. It means that green dynamic capabilities and green transformational leadership can not only directly affect green product development performance positively but also indirectly affect it positively via green creativity. Hence, companies have to increase their green dynamic capabilities, green transformational leadership, and green creativity to enhance their green product development performance.
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