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Using the social psychological theory of 'constructive controversy', this book analyses the nature of disagreement among members of decision-making groups. It addresses questions such as: do differences of opinion enhance or obstruct creative thinking? And why do people make decisions based only on their own perspective without considering alternative viewpoints?
Why do people make decisions based on their own perspective without considering alternative points of view? Do differences of opinion enhance or obstruct critical thinking? Is it wise to seek out people who disagree with you and listen to their objections to your conclusions? Focusing on the theory, research, and application of constructive controversy, this book analyses the nature of disagreement among members of decision-making groups, project teams, academic study groups, and other groups that are involved in solving problems. Johnson demonstrates that this theory is one of the most effective methods of enhancing creativity and innovation, decision making, teaching, and political discourse. The book includes entertaining and intriguing examples of how constructive controversy has been used in a variety of historical periods to advance creativity, achieve innovations, and guide democracies. It will be welcomed by students in the fields of social psychology, management/business studies, education, and communication studies.
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.
Although creativity is often considered an individual ability or activity, innovation in teams and organizations involves collaboration of people with diverse perspectives, knowledge, and skills. The effective development of collaborative innovations and solutions to problems is critical to the success of teams and organizations, but research has also demonstrated many factors which tend to limit the effectiveness of collaborative innovation of groups and teams. This volume highlights recent theoretical, empirical, and practical developments that provide a solid basis for the practice of collaborative innovation and future research. It draws from a broad range of research perspectives including cognition, social influence, groups, teams, creativity, communication, networks, information systems, organizational psychology, engineering, computer science, and the arts. This volume is an important source of information for students, scholars, practitioners, and others interested in understanding the complexity of the group creative process and tapping the creative potential of groups and teams.
This book on innovation management charts the shift to a more systemic view of creativity and the greater attention now paid to the role of tacit knowledge. Further it elaborates on the way in which cognitive style and personality type affect how we set about problem solving, decision-making and change, and the different kinds of culture organisations need to encourage creativity. It also disusses developing creativity and innovation, organisational knowledge creation, adaptors and innovators etc.
Creativity for Innovation Management is a rigorous yet applied guide which illustrates what creativity is, why it matters, and how it can be developed at both individual and group levels. Unlike many technique-oriented books, this book will combine theory and practice, drawing on the latest research in psychology, organizational behaviour, innovation and entrepreneurship. This exciting new text outlines the necessary skills and competences for innovative and creative processes. It provides opportunities to explore these and also to develop them via a wide variety of activities linked to relevant tools and techniques, as well as a range of case studies. By working through key competence areas at personal and then team levels, students then have an opportunity to practice and enhance these skills. This will be complemented by online resources which will provide students with access to key tools and techniques plus activities to help develop their creativity. This textbook is ideal for students of innovation, management and entrepreneurship, as well as professionals in those industries that want to excel by developing and applying their own creativity at work.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.
This book presents the most recent theoretical insights and practical intervention methods to (re)build trust between management and organized employees in organizations. Offering a multidisciplinary perspective on trust and conflict management in organizations, the book draws from diverse fields such as organizational psychology, business, law, industrial relations and sociology. It examines the often encountered breaches of trust between management and organized workers, and the resulting destructive social conflicts, social actions, strikes or dramatic business decisions. Its focus is on trust and conflict management at the organizational level in an industrial relations context: that of employee representatives and management. The book introduces a new theoretical approach: the Tree of Trust, designed to analyse and mediate the interconnected levels of trust and distrust in industrial relations. It presents case studies and practical recommendations to build trust and constructive conflict management in the organizations, and illustrates these by means of experiences from different countries around the globe.
The basic question to which this book is addressed is not how to eliminate or prevent conflict but rather how to make it productive, or minimally, how to prevent it from being destructive. I shall not deal with situations of "pure" conflict in which inevitably one side loses what the other gains. My interest is in conflict where there is a mixture of cooperative and competitive interests, where a variety of outcomes is possible; mutual loss, gain for one and loss of the other, and mutual gain. Thus my query can be restated, as an investigation of the conditions under which the participants will evolve a cooperative relationship or a competitive relationship in a situation which permits either. -- from the introduction.
How do people and institutions manage to bring their different perspectives into an effective and productive interplay? How can we overcome obstacles for the creative potentials of distributed perspectives? Traditionally, the perspectives of people and institutions are considered to be fixed and isolated points of view. In such a picture, the perspectives seem determined in advance by positions and persons seem trapped within their perspectival horizons. In contrast, the new approach of this volume’s contributions focuses on the simple but fundamental fact that people (in their perceiving, speaking, thinking, and acting) always already refer to fellow human beings and coordinate their own perspectives with those of other persons and institutions. The contributions of the present volume concentrate on the structures, mechanisms, and dynamics of the interplays of different perspectives of interacting, communicating, and cooperating persons and institutions. The volume focuses on how the creative potentials as well as the organizational effectiveness of distributed perspectives can be set free.