A discourse analysis of innovation in academic management literature

The chapter explores the academic management discourse of innovation in high impact articles. Innovation is approached as a discursive terrain where discourses compete to ascribe meanings to innovation. The study shows that innovation is mainly constructed as a positive concept in management literature and the chapter broadens the scope by analysing and problematizing the academic management discourse of innovation. More specifically, the analysis shows that management research of innovation is self-referential; it primarily focuses on benefits for the innovating organization by promoting accelerated innovation, effective self-preservation practices and a faith in the good result of innovation. What is constructed here is a potential self-reinforcing circle driving organizations to innovate faster and faster. The authors argue that research needs to acknowledge and explore what innovation leads to beyond the immediate economic interests of organizations. This would help scholars to identify blind spots, and to invite research which rejects the pro-innovation bias in order to extend research agendas to also include undesirable effects of innovation and possibilities to reduce them.Peer reviewe

O tratamento contábil do capital intelectual em empresas com valor de mercado superior ao valor contábil

Este artigo tem por objetivo sintetizar o resultado da pesquisa sobre o tratamento contábil que é aplicado ao capital intelectual, sob a ótica do processo de gestão, representado pelos conceitos e técnicas que são utilizados e que dão suporte à ação da administração, em empresas com valor de mercado superior ao valor contábil. Para atingir este propósito, o artigo consubstancia-se em uma pesquisa realizada em duas empresas de capital aberto, de Santa Catarina, que apresentam valor de mercado, considerado o valor das ações superior ao seu valor contábil. Observou-se que, embora as empresas pesquisadas possuam todas as características das organizações voltadas ao conhecimento e domínio tecnológico, o tratamento contábil do capital intelectual é algo ainda muito incipiente, e que, os critérios utilizados para mensurar, registrar e evidenciar as informações referentes ao capital humano, capital estrutural e capital de clientes, com vistas ao processo de gestão, é algo que ainda carece de uma sistematização, para que se possa refletir, por meio das demonstrações contábeis, alguma posição nesse sentido. Concluiu-se que as empresas pesquisadas, mesmo não possuindo as informações sistematizadas sobre as iniciativas de mensuração do capital intelectual, têm consciência da sua importância. No entanto, para que os gestores desses empreendimentos possam, efetivamente, utilizá-las como um diferencial competitivo no processo de gestão, as informações sistematizadas sobre o capital intelectual devem fazer parte dos relatórios gerados para a tomada de decisões.The objective of this article si to summarize the result of the research about the accounting treatment which is applied to the intellectual capital, through the management viewpoint, in companies with a market value superior than the accounting value. In order to reach this intention, the article is substantiated on a research carried out in two open capital companies, in SC, which have a market value, considered the action value superior than its accounting value. It was observed that, although the researched companies have all the characteristics of the organizations that aim to the technological knowledge and domain, the accounting treatment of the intellectual capital is still something too incipient and that the criteria used to measure, register and show up the human capital, structural capital and customer capital referred information with view to the management process, is something that still needs a systematization, so that it is possible to reflect, throughout the accounting demonstrations, some position on this sense. It was concluded that the researched companies, even without the systematized information about the initiative of the intelectual capital mensuration, are conscious about this importance. However, the intellectual capital systematized information must be part of the generated reports for the decion takings, so that the managers of these undertakings can effectively use them as a competitive differential in the management process

A contabilidade gerencial e os métodos multicriteriais

Os métodos multicritérios agregam um valor significativo à informação contábil, na medida em que não somente permitem a abordagem de problemas considerados complexos e, por isto mesmo, não tratáveis pelos procedimentos intuitivo-empíricos usuais, mas também conferem, ao processo de tomada de decisão uma clareza e conseqüente transparência não disponíveis quando esses procedimentos, ou outros métodos de natureza monocritério, são utilizados. Discorre-se acerca dos métodos multicriteriais de apoio à tomada de decisão, citando conceitos e referências históricas, abordando medidas subjetivas e seu uso pela contabilidade gerencial, apresentando os principais métodos multi-atributos de apoio à tomada de decisão e alguns casos de aplicação na área contábil.Multicriterion methods aggregate a significant value to accounting information, since they do not only allow for the treatment of problems that are considered complex and that, therefore, cannot be treated by the usual intuitive-empirical procedures, but also provide the decision-making process with a level of clearness and, consequently, transparency that is not available when these procedures or other monocriterion methods are used. This article deals with the multicriterion methods that support decisionmaking, quoting concepts and historical references, discussing subjective measures and their use in management accounting and presenting the main multi-attribute methods used in support of decision-making and some examples of their application in the accounting area

The new organizational wealth. : Managing & Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets

San Franciscoxii, 220 p.; 24 cm

Transfer of knowledge and the information processing professions

How is Knowledge best transferred? Via Information or via Tradition (face-to-face socialization)? This Article draws upon Michael Polanyi's concepts of 'Tacit Knowing' and 'Tradition', contrasting it with Information Theory to explore the two methods. The present growth in information seems to be a supply push, not a customer demand, which is potentially dangerous. On today's information markets the suppliers pay - not the consumers, suggesting that the value of information in transferring knowledge is very small. The value can even be negative, because the reader does not know until after the reading, whether the information was worth spending time on or not. The money makers have the information suppliers as customers or have created standards that force the readers to use their tools. It seems false - and possibly unprofitable - to base transfer of human knowledge on information. I suggest that those carrying a 'radical' definition of information as being equal and meaningless are less likely to be disappointed and less likely to lose money on information markets. Human knowledge is action oriented and is best transferred via tradition, in social interaction with people, because humans have a huge capacity to absorb signals unconsciously in face-to-face communication. However, tradition is slow and unconscious. We must find new ways and other interactive media other than information, for efficient knowledge transfer. One such 'medium' is the open plan office.