The Light and the Shadow: How Breakthrough Innovation Is Shaping European Business

There has been much recent focus within the business world on concepts such as restructuring, downsizing and re-engineering. These concepts have their value, but they are inherently negative and inward-looking. Companies which wish to succeed in the long term must look forwards and outwards towards growth and new opportunities. Innovation is the key to the future. If every company were like every other, if every leader led his or her company in exactly the same way, the passion and excitement of business would be gone, replaced by the dull mechanics of process and the bottom line. This will never happen; and this is why re-engineering is in many respects so very disappointing. People don't get passionate about processes; they do about ideas. Innovation is about ideas, about knowledge, about the thrill of the new.

The Light and the Shadow is a unique and inspirational exploration of the rich and sometimes dazzling diversity of European business and innovation - a diversity which flies in the face of those theorists who require there to be a single model for success. The Light and the Shadow shows that there are many ways to innovate, although there are some crucial basic ground rules for innovation. Based on 13 world class innovators, this book will give business people the courage to innovate by capitalising on the rich diversity of European commercial styles and cultures. From this innovation competitive advantage can explode. The Light and the Shadow is the antidote to downsizing that the business world has been waiting for.

Contributing authors Otto Kalthoff, Partner at Roland Berger and Partner, and Director of the Roland Berger Foundation, Munich. Jean-Paul Larçon, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Paris. Ronnie Lessem, City University Business School, London. Klaus Macharzina, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart Raoul C. D. Nacamulli, Universitá Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan. Ikujiro Nonaka, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo. Pedro Nueno, Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE), Barcelona. Philip M. Rosenzweig, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston.