Scholars and popular writers have written a great deal about entrepreneurs and the formation of new companies, but they have not succeeded in predicting when and where large numbers of new organizations will emerge. This volume attempts, from the viewpoint of the interdisciplinary field of organization studies, to answer two major questions about entrepreneurship: First, what are the conditions that prompt the founding of large numbers of new organizations or entirely new industries? Second, what are the real and significant effects of such entrepreneurial activities on existing industries, economies, and societies? The authors emphasize that new organizations do not emerge full blown from the idiosyncratic minds of individual entrepreneurs. Their ideas for new organizations, their ability to acquire capital and other essential resources, and their likelihood of survival as entrepreneurs derive from the contexts in which they live and work. At the same time, new organizations fundamentally and immediately transform their contexts. The first part of the book explores the mental models that founders of new companies bring with them from previous experiences, the ways in which their ideas come not only from the companies in which they work but from the surrounding organizational communities, and the importance of local and regional dynamics in nurturing innovative communities. Other papers in this section shift perspective from geographic communities to other contexts―the university, the knowledge industry, and the technology cycle. The second part of the book explores the role of entrepreneurial activity in the transformation of contexts and the evolution of industries, focusing on the processes and tools that entrepreneurs use to legitimate new organizational populations, and the collateral industries and communities that build up around new organizational populations, aiding in the development of new companies.

The Entrepreneurship Dynamic: Origins of Entrepreneurship and the Evolution of Industries (Stanford Business Books)

Business & Money

Economics

Stanford Business Books

The Triumph of Ethernet: Technological Communities and the Battle for the LAN Standard (Innovation and Technology in the World Economy)

One of the most important elements in the computer revolution has been agreement on technological standards. The advances in communication allowed by millions of computers connecting over various networks are based on these networks sharing a common language. This book tells the complete story of the battle between several competing technologies in the late 1970s and early 1980s to become the compatibility standard in one high-tech arena, the LAN (local area network) industry. In the end, a single technology succeeded in dominating the entire industry: Ethernet. The author argues that Ethernet triumphed not because it was better or cheaper, but because of a clever strategy by Ethernet’s corporate sponsors. This strategy mandated the building of a large supplier base around the technology in order to compensate for an inability to produce all required components and devices. Within a few years, Ethernet had greatly surpassed its competitors in gaining suppliers, which included specialized start-ups, semiconductor firms, and established computer manufacturers. This supplier advantage proved an invaluable strategic asset. As suppliers developed various price and product advantages that were easily adopted by Ethernet, its competitors were driven out of the market. Key to understanding the importance of a supplier base in the race for standards is the crucial role of a technological community. The book demonstrates how technological communities account not only for critical differences in the standardization strategies of various LAN vendors, but also for the emergence of other important instances of technological competition. For example, the recent rise of Linux and Java can be seen as the result of successful community-driven strategies. The story of the battle for the LAN standard is also a story of the Internet more broadly, and so the book offers unique insights into its dazzling growth, as LANs became important corporate on-ramps to the Internet and several LAN suppliers (such as 3Com) evolved into leading suppliers of Internet technology.

von Burg, Urs

Momentous developments in the global economy over the last two decades have dramatically increased the availability of industrial investment sites and lowered the cost of relocating core activities to new countries. But how should these developments be exploited for competitive advantage? Firms face competing pressures: scale economies and the advantages of proximity push them to concentrate activities in one or only a few locations, while low wages and new markets invite dispersal across several countries. This book examines how location decisions have contributed to the global dominance of U.S. firms in the hard disk drive industry. In analyzing the industry since its beginnings some forty years ago, the book explains how American leadership in disk drives has rested on the formation of two complementary industrial clusters. Fundamental research and product development has been located almost entirely in the United States, principally California. Manufacturing has been concentrated in Southeast Asia (initially in Singapore and later in Thailand and Malaysia as well). This duality has proven key to the successful competitive position of the U.S. disk drive industry. Beyond the particulars of the disk drive industry, the authors present new perspectives on the sources of industrial leadership, the strategic behavior of multinational corporations, the geographic evolution of industry, and the creation and endurance of industrial clusters. Managers will gain insight into how location decisions can contribute to organizational effectiveness, and will learn that globalizing production, while keeping innovative activities at home, can contribute to their firms’ competitive advantage. Policy makers will find that first mover advantages may be as important for countries as for companies, since early and systematic efforts to attract a specific industry can generate a critical mass of investments that, over time, will make a location resistant to inducements offered by other countries.

From Silicon Valley to Singapore: Location and Competitive Advantage in the Hard Disk Drive Industry (Stanford Business Books)

Haggard, Stephan

Doner, Richard F.

McKendrick, David G.

Foundations for Inquiry, a philosophy of social science book, is both a primer and a resource for anyone interested in social and behavioral research. As a "reader" with excerpts from classic and soon-to-be classic writings on research in the organizational sciences, the book shows the myriad choices facing researchers―including assumptions they make about ways of creating knowledge, beliefs and values they hold regarding reality, and philosophical and managerial allegiances they form. This book will give readers the information they need to select among these choices, appreciate the tradeoffs involved, and understand how they affect the ways in which data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted, and in which "truth" is ultimately created. Most books about research address the "how to" of inquiry rather than the "why." Foundations for Inquiry enlightens readers about the variety of philosophical assumptions regarding inquiry and organizational phenomena, demonstrates how these assumptions shape subsequent choices about theories, and shows how theoretical and philosophical choices consequently shape and guide the research process. Awareness of these choices and tradeoffs enables readers to be more discriminating consumers of, and adept contributors to, research-based knowledge.

Foundations for Inquiry: Choices and Trade-Offs in the Organizational Sciences

Lundberg, Craig

Young, Cheri A.

Management & Leadership

Organizations, Policy, and the Natural Environment: Institutional and Strategic Perspectives

This book brings together emerging perspectives from organization theory and management, environmental sociology, international regime studies, and the social studies of science and technology to provide a starting point for discipline-based studies of environmental policy and corporate environmental behavior. Reflecting the book’s theoretical and empirical focus, the audience is two-fold: organizational scholars working within the institutional tradition, and environmental scholars interested in management and policy. Together this mix forms a creative synthesis for both sets of readers, analyzing how environmental policy and organizational practices are shaped, spread and contested.

This book brings together emerging perspectives from organization theory and management, environmental sociology, international regime studies, and the social studies of science and technology to provide a starting point for discipline-based studies of environmental policy and corporate environmental behavior. Reflecting the book’s theoretical and empirical focus, the audience is two-fold: organizational scholars working within the institutional tradition, and environmental scholars interested in management and policy. Together this mix forms a creative synthesis for both sets of readers, analyzing how environmental policy and organizational practices are shaped, spread and contested.

Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic expansion of management education and practice. At the same time, the formalization of management practice has allowed for a widespread diffusion of management ideas across sectors and continents. This book provides an up-to-date summary of the development, refinement, and diffusion of managerial ideas, adding detail and explanation to commonly held conceptions about the explosion of management knowledge. The contributors contend that management ideas do not flow automatically but are actively shaped and transformed by knowledge carriers―business schools, consultancies, and the media. Drawing on data from worldwide empirical studies, the chapters analyze how such carriers are organized, how they act and react, and how they shape and reshape knowledge. The book places the development and diffusion of management knowledge in a wider environmental and historical context and offers stimulating comparisons of European and American management traditions. The combination of theory and practice will make this book a valuable resource for courses dealing with management, organizational and institutional theory, and globalization.

The Expansion of Management Knowledge: Carriers, Flows, and Sources (Stanford Business Books)

The Expansion of Management Knowledge: Carriers, Flows, and Sources (Stanford Business Books (Paperback))

This book concerns industry creation as knowledge creation. The authors argue that a new class of global, knowledge-driven manufacturing industries has emerged in which learning, continuity, and speed define competition. In these new industries, access to knowledge creation processes matters more than ownership of physical assets. Location matters only insofar as it confers learning advantages and market access. Companies need strategies that can mobilize their organizations' country-specific strengths and freely leverage them in open, global learning partnerships with allies, suppliers, and customers. Managing New Industry Creation distills principles that managers can use to seize leadership for their companies as these new industries emerge. The authors draw their insights from firsthand discussions with over 160 managers and scientists who helped found the high-information-content flat panel display (FPD) industry. In the early 1990s, large-format FPDs exploded into public knowledge as a critical enabling technology for notebook computers. In the future, FPDs will increasingly function as the face by which users interact with technology products. The book recounts the business decisions that propelled the industry from humble beginnings to empower a globally mobile workforce and eventually build wall-hanging, high definition televisions that every household can afford. The FPD industry was the first new manufacturing industry to fully emerge in a global economy defined more by trade in knowledge than in physical products. Although FPDs were commercialized in Japan, the joint efforts of an international community of companies made high-volume production of large displays viable. Companies from outside of Japan―including IBM, Applied Materials, and Corning―achieved key positions by challenging U.S.-centered preconceptions of innovation, new business creation, and management process, giving unprecedented global authority and responsibility to their Japanese affiliates. Their success established new rules for competing in the knowledge-driven, global manufacturing industries of the future, first described here for managers, R&amp;D scientists, academics, and students of corporate strategy.

Managing New Industry Creation: Global Knowledge Formation and Entrepreneurship in High Technology

Thomas P. Murtha

Stefanie Ann Lenway

Jeffrey A. Hart

Businesses that produce bioscience products—gene tests and therapies, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical devices—are regularly confronted with ethical issues concerning these technologies. Conflicts exist between those who support advancements in bioscience and those who fear the consequences of unfettered scientific license. As the debate surrounding bioscience grows, it will be increasingly important for business managers to consider the larger consequences of their work.This groundbreaking book follows industry research, development, and marketing of medical and bioscience products across a variety of fields, including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and bio-agriculture. Compelling and current case studies highlight the ethical decisions business managers frequently face. With the increasing visibility and public expectation placed on businesses in this sector, managers need to understand the ethical and social issues. This book addresses that need and provides a framework for incorporating ethical analysis in business decision making.

Ethics and the Business of Bioscience

Eaton, Margaret

Business Culture

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Stanford Business Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stanford Business Books

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Stanford Business Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Entrepreneurship Dynamic: Origins of Entrepreneurship and the Evolution of Industries (Stanford Business Books)

The Triumph of Ethernet: Technological Communities and the Battle for the LAN Standard (Innovation and Technology in the World Economy)

From Silicon Valley to Singapore: Location and Competitive Advantage in the Hard Disk Drive Industry (Stanford Business Books)

Foundations for Inquiry: Choices and Trade-Offs in the Organizational Sciences

Organizations, Policy, and the Natural Environment: Institutional and Strategic Perspectives

Organizations, Policy, and the Natural Environment: Institutional and Strategic Perspectives

The Expansion of Management Knowledge: Carriers, Flows, and Sources (Stanford Business Books)

The Expansion of Management Knowledge: Carriers, Flows, and Sources (Stanford Business Books (Paperback))

Managing New Industry Creation: Global Knowledge Formation and Entrepreneurship in High Technology

Ethics and the Business of Bioscience