Environmental concerns have increasingly led to the installation of Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) despite the fact that they are recognized as expensive. Innovative efforts within the area are beset with difficulties [1], and they are at risk of producing misdirected or insignificant improvements in terms of the cost effectiveness of total energy conversion systems. This paper investigates how RETs can be evaluated, in terms of economy and engineering solutions, by studying the fundamental physics of renewable energy sources and how it matches with the RETs. This match is described by the "Degree of Utilization". The findings indicate that new innovations should focus on the possible number of full loading hours. RETs that are correctly matched to their energy source generate a higher amount of electric energy and have a higher potential of becoming more competitive. In cases where this aspect has been ignored, leading to relatively small degrees of utilization, it can be understood as an engineering mismatch between installed power, converted energy, and the fundamental physics of the renewable energy sources. Since there is a strong and possibly biased support for so-called mature RETs and already existing solutions, a clarification of how fundamental physical laws affect the cost of investments and payback of investments is needed. The present paper is part I out of II and it focuses on the difference between power and energy and the physics of different energy sources and their utilization.
In this paper, we develop the notion of bricolage by paying attention to the role of chance in the same, rather than approaching it from the perspective of control and agency. We argue that the concept of chance can be used to downplay the common tendency to focus on individual agency in bricolage, proposing an alternative understanding of the latter as constellations of resources coming together in unexpected combinations. We situate our theoretical argument in the for bricolage understudied context of a declining industry, where we focus on the role of chance in how resources are combined and separated in state interventions, connecting to the literature on the ‘state as entrepreneur’. Three episodes from the Swedish state-owned shipping companies Zenit and Uddevalla Shipping during the shipping crisis of the 1970s and 1980s are used to illustratehow state intervention can be imbued with chance and serendipity.
Extreme environments are characterized in part by the romance and mystique ascribed to them, something that goes for leadership as well. Whereas the mystique of the former is connected to the perception of danger and risk, both have connections to transcending the mundane, heroism and the challenge and character of the self. Extreme environments would thus be highly likely to bring out extreme perceptions of leadership as well, including but not limited to attempted heroics and confusing risk-taking with leadership. In addition to this, ...
Honour, as a concept, is at times seen as implicit in leadership and the working of peer groups, but has rarely been explicitly discussed in management studies. This paper presents honour as a key category in socio-moral contexts, and discusses how it and related concepts, such as respect, shame and pride, affect leadership contexts. We argue, through a discussion on honour as it has been studied in, for example, sociology and anthropology, that studies thereof can be a promising avenue for developing the way in which complex leadership settings and exchanges are analysed.
Entrepreneurship studies started out as a young field, one where a mix ofeconomists, psychologists, geographers and the occasional anthropologist cametogether to study the wonder and weirdness that is entrepreneurship, in a widerange of fashions and with few a priori assumptions to hold it back. Today, someof this eclecticism lives on in the field, but at the same time we have seen that thefield has matured and its popularity has led to the field becoming increasinglyinstitutionalized – and thereby beset by an increasing number of assumptions,even myths. Consequently, this special issue queries some of the assumptions andpotential myths that flourish in the field, inquiring critically into the constitution ofentrepreneurship as a field of research – all in order to develop the same. Withoutoccasions where a field can question even its most deeply held beliefs, we are atrisk of becoming ideologically rather than analytically constituted, which is whywe in this special issue wanted to create a space for the kind of critical yet creativeplay that e.g. Sarasvathy (2004) has encourages the field to engage with.
Researchers often use Lindblom's concept of “muddling through” to explain how complex and incremental processes can lead to satisfactory results even without the systematic application of “management”. However, this tendency to look for positive outcomes from muddling might be limiting, as this tends to ignore muddling that ends in failure. This article aims to extend the work following Lindblom by studying the failure of an innovation in engine technology. The key argument is that by paying more attention to failures, business research can develop a more complete theory of muddling through, and this article uses the case of how a new engine for lawnmowers incrementally failed to become an innovation as an illustration. In this, the term “sliding” is introduced to clarify the role of incrementalism in the processual study of business failure.
Whereas literary and cinematic representations of economy and management have been analyzed for some time (see e.g. Czarniawska and Guillet de Monthoux, 1994; Hassard and Holliday, 1998), precious little interest has been directed to similar aspects in popular music. Consequently, this paper analyzes economy as it is portrayed and disseminated in rap music. By discussing how conspicuous consumption and economic discourses are used in rap lyrics to convey the image of success and possibility, the paper attempts a reading of contemporary capitalism in a particular cultural setting through the notion of a minor literature as theorized by Deleuze and Guattari. The multidimensionality and ironical approach held to the ‘bling-bling’ thus problematizes simplified analyzes of economic language as colonizing (cf. Gibson-Graham, 1996) and instead opens up to a reading of economy as openness.