Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change (Wiley Series in Engineering and Technology Management)

By Frederick Betz

Book Overview

Linking Science and Technology to Economic Goals Within An Organization The growing service economy, the information superhighway, corporate reengineering--these are just a few of the major trends that have emerged in the decade since Frederick Betz published the seminal work on management of technology (MOT). In this new volume, Betz addresses these and many other important factors that have arisen from technological innovation and continue to influence the way technology is managed. Citing numerous case studies that illustrate the most successful approaches and analyzing those that did not succeed, Betz addresses basic concerns such as the ways in which technological innovation occurs and the concepts and techniques through which it can best be managed. He moves on to more specific challenges, such as the need to manage advances in software-based service technologies and the integration of service and manufacturing technologies. These issues are linked with the need to integrate organizational change with technological change and to use new technological tools to manage the new technologies. In this remarkable new volume, Frederick Betz: Addresses industrial technology issues from two different perspectives: management concepts and technical concepts Distinguishes between the technology management needs of government and industry Provides a contemporary overview of MOT from one of its original creators Clarifies complex issues and helps the reader visualize future MOT problems Describes economic development in the historical context of scientific change MOT is the crossroads at which technology strategy meets business strategy to create new business opportunities. Managing Technological Innovation helps managers and engineers to nurture and direct that creative potential to meet the evolving needs of industry and government alike.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471173800
• ISBN13: 9780471173809
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: Wiley-Interscience
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 0.9" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

The Big Picture on Management of Technology

Betz's book qualifies as a "seminal work" on the subject of the Management of Technology. The book is concise and well-written.It gives the needed historical perspective on technology issues.To give you an idea of the scope and clarity of Betz's vision I note that he aptly summarizes the technological history of the world in a few paragraphs of his introduction. These most pithy sentences present a Big Picture that will serve as the backdrop to his cogent exploration of contemporary management of technology issues (a sample):"The gun ended the ancient dominance of the feudal warrior, and the printing press secularized knowledge. The combination of the rise of the mercantile class and the secularization of knowledge are hallmarks of modern societies."Betz brings together a lot of good research and presents it in a concise and stimulating format. He doesn't present the research as if the thinking had already been done. He ends each chapter with some questions for reflection. Having written myself on the subject of intellectual property law [in the International Media Encyclopedia Academic Press 2002, 2003], I was amazed to find illuminating case studies on the subject that I had overlooked. For example, Betz explains that the drug Penacillin was not developed commercially until WWII because companies did not want to undertake development costs without a patent. I highly recommend Betz's book both for Managers of Technology and for classroom use in Undergraduate and Graduate Business schools and perhaps even in Econ departments. While not an economics textbook it serves as a good introduction to technology issues for economists as well. Economists of course need to read the original papers by Schumpeter and Kondratieff, Sah and Stiglitz, but they will find important clues to the significance of those works here. I recommend the reader follow up this book by reading Hal Varian's Internet Economics or Paula Samuelson's publications on Intellectual Property along with Eric Reymond'sThe Cathedral and the Bazaar. I find the book's case studies well written and very thought provoking. I literally couldn't put the book down. At the first reading I skipped the main text to read the case studies on Apple, RCA and Ford.