Innovation = Regenerating Knowledge | The Transformation & Innovation Book Series
Integral Research and Innovation:
Transforming Enterprise and Society
Prof. Dr. Martin Hilb
Managing Director, Institute for Leadership and Human Resource Management, Switzerland
"…this remarkable book on 'Research Methodology' is responsive to all relevant stakeholders. Researchers from the North, the South, the East and the West are now able to draw on their own roots to turn social research into social innovation. A major achievement!"
Prof. Dr. Odeh Al Jayyousi
Regional Director Middle East, IUCN The World Conservation Union, Geneva
"This is a unique book since it blends social transformation with business and culture…It is about re-thinking, grounding and framing research to new domains. In an era of global challenges from poverty to climate change, this book offers new notions for enabling and harnessing research to transform organizations and societies."
Prof. Dr. Adel Al Rasheed
Professor of Management, Yarmouk University, Jordan
"A readable and rigorous book, which is characterised by comprehensiveness, insights, structure and clarity; and which is aided by informative executive summaries, figures and illustrations… It is a timely and pioneering book …I strongly believe that the book's provocative, grounded and convincing arguments will extend the horizons of prevailing research thoughts and practices and would leave a positive impact on social and management research scholarships and students."
Prof. Dr Raoul C. D. Nacamulli
Universita di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
"…a bold new way of framing transformation processes that crosses the boundaries of several disciplines…Their way of generating innovation provides a valuable road map that enables change agents to creatively synthesize local identities and global context."
Prof. Dr. Kensei Hiwaki
Professor of International Economics, Tokyo International University
"…superbly balanced research methodologies for both master and doctoral students focusing on social innovation and on social and economic transformation…"
The core question underlying Integral Research and Innovation is: ‘How can social research be turned into social or indeed “integral” innovation?’
Complementing their acclaimed Transformation Management, this second book in the Transformation and Innovation Series explains how the knowledge creation that underpins transformative processes occurs.
The authors show how research has to be transformative, rather than just informative if it is to contribute usefully to building integrated and sustainable enterprises. At a time when business practitioners and others responsible for organizational development are desperate for usable knowledge the authors contend that social science research is failing to support business and management generally. Instead, academic researchers engage in esoteric arguments about research methodology which do not contribute usefully to the resolution of real world problems.
Drawing on their experience of environments where researchers and practitioners do engage constructively, resulting in research that is active, participative, and genuinely innovative, Ronnie Lessem and Alexander Schieffer are in territory that is far beyond that covered by standard works on research methodology.
This is a book not just for academics and researchers wanting to make a meaningful contribution, but also for reflective practitioners from the corporate organizational, and consultancy based worlds who operate in the area of interface between business and management, education, learning, and society, and who need to know how research can be used to make a real difference.