Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change [Hardcover]

Frederick Betz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 5, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0471173800 | ISBN-13: 978-0471173809 | Edition: 1

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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This follow-up to one of the best known books published on the topic of technology management reflects the many changes have taken place in industry as well as the economy since the 1980s--including the emergence of service as a major industry, the arrival of the age of the information super-highway, and the rise in organizational change and re-engineering.

From the Back Cover

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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Interscience; 1 edition (November 5, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471173800
• ISBN-13: 978-0471173809
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,201,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Big Picture on Management of Technology, March 25, 2003

By 

Randall Larsen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change (Hardcover)

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's
The 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.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too simple and too much introductory -not for grad student, May 30, 1999

By 

Sarawoot Chittratanawat - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change (Hardcover)

This book is too simple to use as a textbook. It's a nice book for undergrad class in business school or introductory class of management in engineering fields. Again, this is not the book that can be used as a textbook at all. Too simple and spend half book just for "roughly talking". Reader can found more reviews in "Interfaces, Vol.29, (2), 1999", in Book review section. The economic of technology is the more important is ignored in this book. Not recommend.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Verbose, dull, and utterly uninspiring, April 5, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change (Hardcover)

This textbook was a requirement for a graduate-level course taught by (guess who?) Dr. Betz. I had read the entire book before the class even started (thank god for coffee), and I re-read every chapter as the semester progressed. I received an 'A' on every assignment, which is good, considering that I was bored out of my mind with the material. The book has a few interesting anecdotes, and a lot of page-filler anecdotes. It is more concerned with scientifically correct vocabulary than giving context to concept in plain English (e.g. endless ranting about physical morphologies, schematic logic, and different flavors of paradigms -- YAAAWN). Overall, this forgettable piece of work is reflective of an uninspiring academic.