Militaries with state-of-the-art information technology sometimes bog down in confusing conflicts. To understand why, it is important to understand the micro-foundations of military power in the ...information age, and this is exactly what Jon R. Lindsay's Information Technology and Military Power gives us. As Lindsay shows, digital systems now mediate almost every effort to gather, store, display, analyze, and communicate information in military organizations. He highlights how personnel now struggle with their own information systems as much as with the enemy. Throughout this foray into networked technology in military operations, we see how information practice—the ways in which practitioners use technology in actual operations—shapes the effectiveness of military performance. The quality of information practice depends on the interaction between strategic problems and organizational solutions. Information Technology and Military Power explores information practice through a series of detailed historical cases and ethnographic studies of military organizations at war. Lindsay explains why the US military, despite all its technological advantages, has struggled for so long in unconventional conflicts against weaker adversaries. This same perspective suggests that the US retains important advantages against advanced competitors like China that are less prepared to cope with the complexity of information systems in wartime. Lindsay argues convincingly that a better understanding of how personnel actually use technology can inform the design of command and control, improve the net assessment of military power, and promote reforms to improve military performance. Warfighting problems and technical solutions keep on changing, but information practice is always stuck in between.
Making in America Berger, Suzanne; MIT Task Force on Production in the Inno, M. I. T. Task
08/2013
eBook
America is the world leader in innovation, but many of the innovative ideas that are hatched in American start-ups, labs, and companies end up going abroad to reach commercial scale. Apple, the ...superstar of innovation, locates its production in China (yet still reaps most of its profits in the United States). When innovation does not find the capital, skills, and expertise it needs to come to market in the United States, what does it mean for economic growth and job creation? Inspired by the MIT Made in America project of the 1980s,Making in Americabrings experts from across MIT to focus on a critical problem for the country.MIT scientists, engineers, social scientists, and management experts visited more than 250 firms in the United States, Germany, and China. In companies across America--from big defense contractors to small machine shops and new technology startups--these experts tried to learn how we can rebuild the industrial landscape to sustain an innovative economy. At each stop, they asked this basic question: "When you have a new idea, how do you get it into the market?" They found gaping holes and missing pieces in the industrial ecosystem. Critical strengths and capabilities that once helped bring new enterprises to life have disappeared: production capacity; small and medium-size suppliers; spillovers of research, training, and new technology from big corporations. (Production in the Innovation Economy, also published by the MIT Press in 2013, describes this research.)Even in an Internet-connected world, proximity to innovation and users matters for industry.Making in Americadescribes ways to strengthen this connection, including public-private collaborations, new government-initiated manufacturing innovation institutes, and industry-community college projects. If we can learn from these ongoing experiments in linking innovation to production, American manufacturing could have a renaissance.
The new division of labor Levy, Frank; Murnane, Richard J
2004, 2012., 20121126, 2012, 2004-01-01, 20040101
eBook, Book
Die Autoren gehen von der Tatsache aus, dass sich die Situation auf dem Arbeitsmarkt in den letzten Jahren grundlegend verändert hat: Selbst nach einer Rezession werden die durch die Automatisierung ...oder die Verlagerung in Niedriglohnländer verloren gegangenen Arbeitsplätze nicht wieder entstehen. Analysiert werden die Einflüsse der Informationstechnik auf die Arbeitsplatzstruktur, insbesondere die Möglichkeiten der Problemlösung und Kommunikation. Es wird dabei die These abgeleitet, dass komplexe Kommunikation nach wie vor eine Domäne menschlichen Handels sein wird, und Computer auf diesem Gebiet keine Alternative darstellen. Die Gesellschaft muss sich auf diese Veränderungen einzustellen, indem eine Arbeitsteilung zwischen automatisierten Jobs und gut bezahlten und hochqualifizierten Arbeitsplätze akzeptiert und gestaltet wird. Arbeitsplätze, deren Schwerpunkt auf komplexen Problemlösungen sowie auf interpersonaler Kommunikation liegt, werden in großer Zahl entstehen. Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: deskriptive Studie. (IAB).
Through a series of studies, the overarching aim of this book is to investigate if and how the digitalization/digital transformation process affects various welfare services provided by the public ...sector, and the ensuing implications thereof. Ultimately, this book seeks to understand if it is conceivable for digital advancement to result in the creation of private/non-governmental alternatives to welfare services, possibly in a manner that transcends national boundaries. This study also investigates the possible ramifications of technological development for the public sector and the Western welfare society at large. This book takes its point of departure from the 2016 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report that targets specific public service areas in which government needs to adopt new strategies not to fall behind. Specifically, this report emphasizes the focus on digitalization of health care/social care, education, and protection services, including the use of assistive technologies referred to as "digital welfare." Hence, this book explores the factors potentially leading to whether state actors could be overrun by other non-governmental actors, disrupting the current status quo of welfare services. The book seeks to provide an innovative, enriching, and controversial take on society at large and how various aspects of the public sector can be, and are, affected by the ongoing digitalization process in a way that is not covered by extant literature on the market. This book takes its point of departure in Sweden given the fact that Sweden is one of the most digitalized countries in Europe, according to the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), making it a pertinent research case. However, as digitalization transcends national borders, large parts of the subject matter take on an international angle. This includes cases from several other countries around Europe as well as the United States.
Contents: Cover; Title; Copyright; Dedication; CONTENTS; PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; CONTRIBUTORS; Part 1. Costs and Productivity in Higher Education; Cost Trends, the "Cost Disease," and ...Productivity in Higher Education; Factors Other Than the Cost Disease Pushing Up Educational Costs; Affordability; Is There a Serious Problem-Even a Crisis?; Notes; Part 2. Prospects for an Online Fix; Background; The Lack of Hard Evidence; The Need for Customizable, Sustainable Platforms (or Tool Kits); The Need for New Mindsets-and Fresh Thinking about Decision-Making; What Must We Retain? Inhalt: Appendix: The Online Learning LandscapeNotes; Discussion by Howard Gardner; Discussion by John Hennessy; William G. Bowen's Responses to Discussion Session Comments; Discussion by Andrew Delbanco; Discussion by Daphne Koller; William G. Bowen's Responses to Discussion Session Comments; INDEX.
The author of Media Today offers "a trenchant, timely, and troubling account of retailers' data-mining, in-store tracking, and predictive analytics" ( The Philadelphia Inquirer ). By one expert's ...prediction, within twenty years half of Americans will have body implants that tell retailers how they feel about specific products as they browse their local stores. The notion may be outlandish, but it reflects executives' drive to understand shoppers in the aisles with the same obsessive detail that they track us online. In fact, a hidden surveillance revolution is already taking place inside brick-and-mortar stores, where Americans still do most of their buying. Drawing on his interviews with retail executives, analysis of trade publications, and experiences at insider industry meetings, advertising and digital studies expert Joseph Turow pulls back the curtain on these trends, showing how a new hyper-competitive generation of merchants—including Macy's, Target, and Walmart—is already using data mining, in-store tracking, and predictive analytics to change the way we buy, undermine our privacy, and define our reputations.Eye-opening and timely, Turow's book is essential reading to understand the future of shopping. "Turow shows shopping today to be an exercise in unwitting self-revelation—and not only online."— The Wall Street Journal "Thoroughly researched and clearly presented with detailed evidence and fascinating peeks inside the retail industry. Much of this information is startling and even chilling, particularly when Turow shows how retail data- tracking can enable discrimination and societal stratification."— Publishers Weekly "Revealing... Valuable reading for shoppers and retailers alike."— Kirkus Reviews
Innovation and its discontents Jaffe, Adam B; Jaffe, Adam B; Lerner, Josh
2008., 20110527, 2011, 2004, 2005-01-01, 20040101
eBook
The United States patent system has become sand rather than lubricant in the wheels of American progress. Such is the premise behind this provocative and timely book by two of the nation's leading ...experts on patents and economic innovation.
This important book delivers a critical wake-up call: a fierce global race for innovation advantage is under way, and while other nations are making support for technology and innovation a central ...tenet of their economic strategies and policies, America lacks a robust innovation policy. What does this portend? Robert Atkinson and Stephen Ezell, widely respected economic thinkers, report on profound new forces that are shaping the global economy-forces that favor nations with innovation-based economies and innovation policies. Unless the United States enacts public policies to reflect this reality, Americans face the relatively lower standards of living associated with a noncompetitive national economy.
The authors explore how a weak innovation economy not only contributed to the Great Recession but is delaying America's recovery from it and how innovation in the United States compares with that in other developed and developing nations. Atkinson and Ezell then lay out a detailed, pragmatic road map for America to regain its global innovation advantage by 2020, as well as maximize the global supply of innovation and promote sustainable globalization.