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New Frontiers in Social Innovation Research
Interest in social innovation continues to rise, from governments setting up social innovation 'labs' to large corporations developing social innovation strategies. Yet theory lags behind practice, and this hampers our ability to understand social innovation and make the most of its potential. This collection brings together work by leading social innovation researchers globally, exploring the practice and process of researching social innovation, its nature and effects. Combining theoretical chapters and empirical studies, it shows how social innovation is blurring traditional boundaries between the market, the state and civil society, thereby developing new forms of services, relationships and collaborations. It takes a critical perspective, analyzing potential downsides of social innovation that often remain unexplored or are glossed over, yet concludes with a powerful vision of the potential for social innovation to transform society.
Implementing responsible research and innovation : Organisational and national conditions
we give an overview of the book and the RRI-Practice study. The book is an analysis of data collected in the RRI-Practice study. It comprises an organizational analysis and an analysis of national discourses, thus analysing conditions for the uptake of RRI in research funding and research performing organisations in the science system.
Human and organisational factors : Practices and strategies for a changing world
This book addresses several questions regarding the implementation of human and organisational factors (HOF) so that recent improvements in industrial safety can be built upon.
Handbook of Economic Sociology for the 21st Century : New Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Studies and Developments
This handbook provides an overview on major developments that occurred in the field of economic sociology after its rebirth since the 1980s in the US. It offers new insights on the uniqueness of European economic sociology compared to US economic sociology which emerged at the end of the 20th century. The handbook presents economic sociology as a developing field which started with certain foundations as new economic sociology, widening the perspective by introducing social factors thereby focusing more on general belief systems, social forms of coordination and the relationships between society and the economy. It offers an outstanding portrait of the research field helping to identify major foundations and trajectories as well as new research perspectives for a globalized economic sociology.
Guanxi and Business Strategy : Theory and Implications for Multinational Companies in China
Guanxi and Business Strategy" elaborates upon a topic of paramount importance to both academic scholars and managers doing business with China: the impact of personal relationships (guanxi) on business affairs. In the Chinese cultural and socio-economic environment, how are the ubiquitous practices of guanxi to be considered in entrepreneurial strategies,Rather than explaining the emergence of guanxi and its persistence – in spite of the existence of a market economy – with Confucianism, the author applies the phenomenon to the methodology of New Economic Sociology. By integrating guanxi into a business context, he shows that the commercial utilization of guanxi with suppliers, customers, competitors and authorities yields significant sustainable competitive advantages.
Emerging Economic Models for Sustainable Businesses : A Practical Approach
Analyses economic models that look at value propositions, creation and capture with ‘People, Planet and Profit’ deeply embedded in each stage of the value chain. The contributions bring out the interplay between new standards, evaluation frameworks, technology innovation and other emerging tools to show how they create a sustainable business. For this, they lean on learnings from successful sustainable businesses. Business leaders will find that this book provides deep insights on improving their existing sustainable practices, and speeding up the transition from linear to circular, narrow stakeholder driven to community driven.
Contracting and safety : Exploring outsourcing practices in high-hazard industries
This book examines the increase in outsourcing, contracting and subcontracting as ways of organising work. It explores the impact of these employment arrangements on public safety, particularly when they are linked to complex supply networks in a range of engineering industries including oil and gas, nuclear power and aviation.
Contemporary Housing Struggles : A Structural Field of Contention Approach
This book provides a comparative study of housing contention in Budapest and Bucharest in 2008-2021. The financialization of housing and the resulting inequalities, expulsions and social contention are a central characteristic of today’s capitalist crisis. These two East European cities that fall outside the usual focus of urban movements research provide an illuminating case of similar structural conditions governed by different political constellations at the national and local scales. Instead of searching for unilinear narratives connecting structural tensions to politicized claims, the book offers an in-depth contextual analysis of multiple forms of contention, their (often unintentional) interactions, and their broader political-structural background, including tensions surrounded by political silence.
Chasing the Chinese dream : Four decades of following China’s war on poverty
This book explores the historical, cultural and philosophical contexts that have made anti-poverty the core of Chinese society since Liberation in 1949, and why poverty alleviation measures evolved from the simplistic aid of the 1950s to Xi Jinping’s precision poverty alleviation and its goal of eliminating absolute poverty by 2020. The book also addresses the implications of China’s experience for other developing nations tackling not only poverty but such issues as pandemics, rampant urbanization and desertification exacerbated by global warming. The first of three parts draws upon interviews of rural and urban Chinese from diverse backgrounds and local and national leaders. These interviews, conducted in even the remotest areas of the country, offer candid insights into the challenges that have forced China to continually evolve its programs to resolve even the most intractable cases of poverty.
A Theory of Marketing : Outline of a Social Systems Perspective
Marketing has become one of the most influential forces in contemporary market economies. Yet despite ubiquitous empirical presence, uncountable textbook definitions, and sixty years of scholarly work, a coherent sociological understanding of this powerful concept is still amiss. Drawing on Luhmannian social systems theory, historical analysis, and four qualitative studies, the author theorizes on the marketing function as a self-contained system of communications. It is argued that marketing systems prosper within a host organization if and as long as they successfully influence observers' preferences towards particular brands. On these conceptual foundations a comprehensive brand- and communication-centered theory is developed that fulfills Alderson', Cox' and Bartels' foundational requirements for a general theory of marketing in an unprecedented way.
