Challenging the Innovation Paradigm

<p>Innovation is almost always seen as a good thing. <em>Challenging the Innovation Paradigm</em> is a critical analysis of the innovation frenzy and contemporary innovation research. The one-sided focus on desirable effects of innovation misses many opportunities to reduce the undesirable consequences. Authors in this book show how systemic effects outside the innovating firms reduce the net benefits of innovation for individual employees customers as well as for society as a whole - also the innovators' own organizations.</p><p>This book analyzes the dominant discourses that construct and reconstruct the assumptions and one-sidedness of contemporary innovation research (generally known as the pro-innovation bias) by focusing on consequences of innovation distinguishing between intended and unintended as well as desirable and undesirable consequences. Contributors illustrate how both the discourses of innovation and the consequences of innovation permeate all levels of society: in policy discourse in academic discourse in research funding in national innovation systems in the financial sector in organizational and work contexts and in environmental pollution. The volume offers a critical multidisciplinary and multinational perspective on the topic with authors from diverse academic fields examining and making comparisons between a variety of national contexts.</p>