A critical exploration of today's global imperative to
innovate, by champions, critics, and reformers of innovation.
Corporate executives, politicians, and school board leaders
agree―Americans must innovate. Innovation experts fuel this demand with books
and services that instruct aspiring innovators in best practices, personal
habits, and workplace cultures for fostering innovation. But critics have begun
to question the unceasing promotion of innovation, pointing out its
gadget-centric shallowness, the lack of diversity among innovators, and the
unequal distribution of innovation's burdens and rewards. Meanwhile, reformers
work to make the training of innovators more inclusive and the outcomes of
innovation more responsible. This book offers an overdue critical exploration
of today's global imperative to innovate by bringing together innovation's
champions, critics, and reformers in conversation.
The book presents an overview of innovator training,
exploring the history, motivations, and philosophies of programs in private
industry, universities, and government; offers a primer on critical innovation
studies, with essays that historicize, contextualize, and problematize the
drive to create innovators; and considers initiatives that seek to reform and
reshape what it means to be an innovator.
- Publisher's description
