Innovation by Demand: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Demand and its Role in Innovation

Andrew McMeekin

ISBN 10: 0719082846 / ISBN 13: 9780719082849

Published by Manchester University Press, 2011

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Innovation by Demand: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Demand and its Role in Innovation
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0719082846
• ISBN 13: 9780719082849
• Binding: Paperback / softback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 379 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The structure and regulation of consumption and demand has recently become of great interest to sociologists and economists alike, and at the same time there is growing interest in trying to understand the patterns and drivers of technological innovation. This book, newly available in paperback, brings together a range of sociologists and economists to study the role of demand and consumption in the innovative process.

The book starts with a broad conceptual overview of ways that the sociological and economics literatures address issues of innovation, demand and consumption. It goes on to offer different approaches to the economics of demand and innovation through an evolutionary framework, before reviewing how consumption fits into evolutionary models of economic development. Food consumption is then looked at as an example of innovation by demand, including an examination of the dynamic nature of socially-constituted consumption routines.

The book includes a number of illuminating case studies, including an analysis of how black Americans use consumption to express collective identity, and a number of demand–innovation relationships within matrices or chains of producers and users or other actors, including service industries such as security, and the environmental performance of companies. The involvement of consumers in innovation is looked at, including an analysis of how consumer needs may be incorporated in the design of high-tech products. The final chapter argues for the need to build an economic sociology of demand that goes from micro-individual through to macro-structural features.
This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9, Industry, innovation and infrastructure.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

About the Authors

Andrew McMeekin is Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Innovation and Competitionat the University of Manchester

Mark Tomlinson is a lecturer based at CRIC (Centre for Research in Innovation and Competition), The University of Manchester and UMIST

The late Ken Green was a lecturer at Manchester School of Management, UMIST

Vivien Walsh is a lecturer at Manchester School of Management, UMIST