Innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge, and human capital are widely acknowledged as key levers of development. Yet what are the sources of these factors, and why do they differ in their endowment across regions? Motivated by a belief that theories of economic development can move beyond the generally accepted explanations of location and the organization of industries and capital, this book establishes a behavioural theory of economic development illustrating that differences in human behaviour across cities and regions are a significant deep-rooted cause of uneven development. Fusing a range of concepts relating to culture, psychology, human agency, institutions, and power, it proposes that the long-term differentials in economic development between cities and regions, both within and across nations, is strongly connected to the underlying forms of behaviour enacted by humans on an individual and collective basis. Given a world of finite and limited resources, coupled with a rapidly growing population -- especially in cities and urban regions -- human behaviour, and the expectations and preferences upon which it is based, are central to understanding how notions of development may change in coming years. This book provides a novel theory of the role of psychocultural context and human behavioural and institutional frameworks in uneven economic development on a global scale.

A Behavioural Theory of Economic Development: The Uneven Evolution of Cities and Regions

Business & Money

Huggins, Robert

Thompson, Piers

Economics

Oxford University Press

Competition, Competitive Advantage, and Clusters: The Ideas of Michael Porter

Harvard professor Michael Porter has been one of the most influential figures in strategic management research over the last three decades. He infused a rigorous theoretical framework of industrial organization economics with the then still embryonic field of strategic management and elevated it to its current status as an academic discipline. Porter's outstanding career is also characterized by its cross-disciplinary nature. Following his most important work on strategic management, he then made a leap to the policy side and dealt with a completely different set of analytical units. More recently he has made a foray into inner city development, environmental regulations, and health care services. Throughout these explorations Porter has maintained his integrative approach, seeking a road that links management case studies and the general model building of mainstream economics. With expert contributors from a range of disciplines including strategic management, economic development, economic geography, and planning, this book assesses the contribution Michael Porter has made to these respective disciplines. It clarifies the sources of tension and controversy relating to all the major strands of Porter's work, and provides academics, students, and practitioners with a critical guide for the application of Porter's models. The book highlights that while many of the criticisms of Porter's ideas are valid, they are almost an inevitable outcome for a scholar who has sought to build bridges across wide disciplinary valleys. His work has provided others with a set of frameworks to explore in more depth the nature of competition, competitive advantage, and clusters from a range of vantage points.

Izushi, Hiro

Harvard professor, Michael Porter has been one of the most influential figures in strategic management research over the last three decades. He infused a rigorous theoretical framework of industrial organization economics with the then still embryonic field of strategic management and elevated it to its current status as an academic discipline. Porter's outstanding career is also characterized by its cross-disciplinary nature. Following his most important work on strategic management, he then made a leap to the policy side and dealt with a completely different set of analytical units. More recently he has made a foray into inner city development, environmental regulations, and health care services. Throughout these explorations Porter has maintained his integrative approach, seeking a road that links management case studies and the general model building of mainstream economics. With expert contributors from a range of disciplines including strategic management, economic development, economic geography, and planning, this book assesses the contribution Michael Porter has made to these respective disciplines. It clarifies the sources of tension and controversy relating to all the major strands of Porter's work, and provides academics, students, and practitioners with a critical guide for the application of Porter's models. The book highlights that while many of the criticisms of Porter's ideas are valid, they are almost an inevitable outcome for a scholar who has sought to build bridges across wide disciplinary valleys. His work has provided others with a set of frameworks to explore in more depth the nature of competition, competitive advantage, and clusters from a range of vantage points.

Management & Leadership

Storage and conversion are critical components of important energy-related technologies. "Advanced Batteries: Materials Science Aspects" employs materials science concepts and tools to describe the critical features that control the behavior of advanced electrochemical storage systems. This volume focuses on the basic phenomena that determine the properties of the components, i.e. electrodes and electrolytes, of advanced systems, as well as experimental methods used to study their critical parameters. This unique materials science approach utilizes concepts and methodologies different from those typical in electrochemical texts, offering a fresh, fundamental and tutorial perspective of advanced battery systems. Graduate students, scientists and engineers interested in electrochemical energy storage and conversion will find "Advanced Batteries: Materials Science Aspects" a valuable reference.

Advanced Batteries: Materials Science Aspects

Science & Math

Chemistry

Springer

The Global Competitiveness of Regions (Regions and Cities)

The aim of this book is to consider theoretically the notion of the global competitiveness of regions, as well as giving attention as to how such competitiveness may be empirically measured. With this in mind, the book has three specific objectives: first, to place the concept of regional competitiveness within the context of regional economic development theory; second, to present a rationale and method for quantifying the global competitiveness of regions; and, third, to undertake the most geographically widespread analysis of regional competitiveness differences across the globe. With regard to the third goal, the analysis incorporates more than 500 regions across Europe, North and South America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.  The importance of the concept of competitiveness has increased rapidly in recent years, with the issues surrounding it becoming, at the same time, more empirically refined and theoretically complex. The focus on regions reflects the growing consensus that they are the primary spatial units that compete to attract investment, and it is at the regional level that knowledge is circulated and transferred, resulting in agglomerations, or clusters, of industrial and service sector enterprises. This growing acknowledgement of the region’s role as a key spatial unit of organisation has led to attention turning to competitiveness at a more regional level.  The book explores the results of the World Competitiveness Index of Regions (WCIR), covering the rankings and results of the 2014 edition. The WCIR provides a tool for analysing the development of a range of regional economies across the globe. It enables an illustration of the changing patterns of regional competitiveness on the international stage to be generated. In fundamental terms, the WCIR aims to produce an integrated and overall benchmark of the knowledge capacity, capability, and sustainability of each region, and the extent to which this knowledge is translated into economic value and transferred into the wealth of the citizens of each region.

Prokop, Daniel

Reference

Routledge

This book employs materials science concepts and tools to describe the critical features that control the behavior of advanced electrochemical storage systems. This approach offers a fresh, fundamental and tutorial perspective of advanced battery systems.

Introduction Energy is necessary for a number of reasons, the most basic and obvious involve the preparation of food and the provision of heat to make life comfortable, or at least, bearable. Subsequently, a wide range of technological uses of energy have emerged and been developed, so that the availability of energy has become a central issue in society. The easiest way to acquire useful energy is to simply ?nd it as wood or a hydrocarbon fossil fuel in nature. But it has often been found to be advantageous to convert what is simply available in nature into more useful forms, and the processing and conversion of raw materials, especially petrochemicals have become a very large industry. Wood Wood has been used to provide heat for a great many years. In some cases, it can be acquired as needed by foraging, or cutting, followed by simple collection. When it is abundant there is relatively little need for it to be stored. However, many societies have found it desirable to collect more wood than is immediately needed during warm periods during the year, and to store it up for use in the winter, when the needs are greater, or its collection is not so convenient. One can still see this in some locations, such as the more remote communities in the Alps, for example. One might think of this as the oldest and simplest example of energy storage.

Energy Storage

Computers & Technology

Computer Science

Exploring the process of university collaboration from the perspective of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this book offers an in-depth examination of the collaboration process, dispelling the myth of the disengagement of these firms. Andrew Johnston and Robert Huggins present a thorough account of how SMEs can "unlock the ivory tower" and gain access to university knowledge to support their own innovation. Outlining and discussing the intellectual roots of research in this field in an accessible way, the book focuses on SMEs to provide insight to an often overlooked group of firms. Chapters show how the closeness of the partners in terms of network membership, working culture and practice, and technical language drive the formation and function of these collaborative links, offering a holistic account of this from idea generation to the completion of projects. This will be an essential read for academics researching innovation and the role of universities, as well as knowledge exchange practitioners wishing to further their understanding of collaboration processes. Policymakers seeking to explore how and why SMEs engage in open innovation practices will also find this an invigorating book.

Networks, SMEs, and the University: The Process of Collaboration and Open Innovation

Johnston, Andrew

Business Development & Entrepreneurship

Edward Elgar Publishing

Energy Storage explains the underlying scientific and engineering fundamentals of all major energy storage methods. These include the storage of energy as heat, in phase transitions and reversible chemical reactions, and in organic fuels and hydrogen, as well as in mechanical, electrostatic and magnetic systems. Updated coverage of electrochemical storage systems considers exciting developments in materials and methods for applications such as rapid short-term storage in hybrid and intermittent energy generation systems, and battery optimization for increasingly prevalent EV and stop-start automotive technologies. This nuanced coverage of cutting-edge advances is unique in that it does not require prior knowledge of electrochemistry. Traditional and emerging battery systems are explained, including lithium, flow and liquid batteries. Energy Storage provides a comprehensive overview of the concepts, principles and practice of energy storage that is useful to both students and professionals.

Energy Storage: Fundamentals, Materials and Applications

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

Books by Huggins, Robert

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

A Behavioural Theory of Economic Development: The Uneven Evolution of Cities and Regions

Competition, Competitive Advantage, and Clusters: The Ideas of Michael Porter

Competition, Competitive Advantage, and Clusters: The Ideas of Michael Porter

Advanced Batteries: Materials Science Aspects

The Global Competitiveness of Regions (Regions and Cities)

The Global Competitiveness of Regions (Regions and Cities)

Advanced Batteries: Materials Science Aspects

Energy Storage

Networks, SMEs, and the University: The Process of Collaboration and Open Innovation

Energy Storage: Fundamentals, Materials and Applications