Europe's economic crisis continues, and the way it plays out will decide the future course of the world economy. Among those who are trying to steer the continent, and especially the euro zone, away from the edge of the precipice is Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund. She has recommended policies such as deeper economic integration and higher firewalls to turn Europe around. Ms. Lagarde also has the delicate task of restructuring the IMF so that fast-growing emerging economies have a voice in the institution that is commensurate with their increasing economic clout, without alienating other member countries.
The emergence of a cognitive technology disrupts and rearranges the deliberative processes that govern the practices of a given community or society. Such a disruption can have an impact on the architecture of deliberation networks, on the organizations and individuals who participate in deliberations, or on the standards and conventions that structure them. Or it can have an impact on all at once. As for the current digital revolution, one can understand it better considering the previous great historical mutations, paying a special attention to the debates and criticism they have ignited in their day.
After the crucial passage from orality to writing, the invention of the printing press brought about an unprecedented reconfiguration of the circulation of information. The construction of scientific knowledge and political discussion was thereby disrupted, with a progressive expansion of reflection circles. Is the Internet but a new stage?
Thirty years ago, with a few colleagues, a young engineer based in Bangalore founded a software company that was to become a global giant in the world of computing. Last year, Narayana Murthy relinquished his position as president of Infosys. In an interview to ParisTech Review, he re-examines elements that paved the way to success – elements that cannot be dissociated from transformations in contemporary India.
Innovation is the result of constant information exchanges between technology, the markets, an innovation team, as well as other departments of the firm. How can we speed up these exchanges within big companies? Nicolas Bry (Orange – Innovation Marketing Group) suggests creating small dedicated structures led by innovation professionals with specific management methods. Then the question becomes: how to insert their work into group strategies?
There are systematic reasons why elected officials make certain kinds of mistakes over and over. One thing political scientists have discovered by examining the political species is that it shares common characteristics picked up by adapting to its natural environment. One of the strongest motivating forces in this environment is the pressure for reelection. It is precisely this drive for reelection that introduces predictable biases into political decision-making and helps explain governments' paralysis in the face of some very serious problems.
To build a sustainable economy, consuming fewer natural resources, we need to think in terms of growth, not otherwise. The issue of sustainability should be tackled in a dynamic way. By setting a new model for the lifecycle of materials, we can project what the future's economic model could look like.
As a theme, social innovation emerged in the 1960s, driven by management theorists like Peter Drucker and social entrepreneurs such as Michael Young, founder of the Open University. But only in the last decade has it really taken off, by redrawing the sometimes blurry line between business and civil society, one drawing inspiration from the other and vice versa.
In any discussion of strategic thinking in contemporary China, western consultants always cite the wisdom of one towering figure: Sun Zi, author of the celebrated "Art of War". Yet when enquiries are made into the principles guiding Lenovo boss Liu Chuanzi he is quick to proffer "The Little Red Book". He is not alone. Is this a nod of respect toward the tutelary figure of the current regime? No, Mao Zedong Thought remains an enduring influence from Beijing to Shenzhen and revising some of its concepts is of immense value in any attempt to understand the tactical instincts of contemporary China.
The multiple interactions that underlie complex situations are poorly understood by the market approach. For economists they should represent the submerged portion of an iceberg that is much larger than it appears. Externalities are the visible manifestation of untapped potential and herald rich seams of value that have bubbled just under the firmament of human interaction since the dawn of the digital age. Make no mistake, at the level of individual enterprise as well as the wider economy, externalities will occupy a central role for the foreseeable future.
