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The Role of Creativity in Innovation
(Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to) Innovation requires creativity, and has even been described as the act of channeling creativity to produce ideas or products “that people can and wish to use,” (Vandevert, 2003) because creativity is the cognitive process that enables innovation. This topic has been extensively studied in the art and psychology literature.…
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Authenticity for Quality
In Good Business, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discusses some insights from Robert Shapiro, CEO of the chemical company Monsanto about authenticity and job design: The notion of job implies that there’s been some supreme architect who designed this system so that a lot of parts fit together and produce whatever the desired output is. No one in…
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What is Design Science?
Initially conceptualized by Herbert Simon (1996), the design science paradigm “is fundamentally a problem solving paradigm, [which] seeks to create innovations that define the ideas, practices, technical capabilities, and products through which the analysis, design, implementation and management and use of… systems can be effectively and efficiently accomplished.” (Hevner, 2004) The aim of design science…
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Quality and the Decline of the U.S. Automotive Industry
Why are Ford, Chrysler and GM in trouble? Can a financial bailout help? In late 2007, I wrote a 7,000 word article examining the ups and downs of the U.S. auto industry. Using a historical analysis of high-level metrics and examining the evolution of quality perception and quality improvement in the auto industry, I show…
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A New American Competitiveness, Fueled by Relative Innovation
Innovation is in the eye of the beholder. The solution offered by the American Competitiveness Initiative focuses on absolute innovation, but does not consider relative innovation. Catalyzing relative innovation still requires a capital investment, but will focus less on the basic R&D issues and more on the issue of appropriate technology, even within the host…
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The Relativity of Innovation
Increasing innovation is something that many companies want to do to enhance and sustain competitiveness. In “Will the American Competitiveness Initiative Work?” I asked whether throwing money at the problem is the best approach. I ask this question because most of the books and academic literature on innovation only consider the absolute aspects of innovation.…
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Will the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) Work?
The financial meltdown and struggling markets have renewed the need to catalyze innovation through science and technology policy. For example, John Doerr, the internationally recognized partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, has remarked that Obama needs to “kick-start a huge amount of innovation and research in energy”. At…
Quality and Innovation 