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| The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World | 
 enlarge | Author: Amar Bhide
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $17.00
You Save: $18.00 (51%)
New (31) Used (5) from $16.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 520
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0691135177
Dewey Decimal Number: 330
EAN: 9780691135175
Publication Date: October 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Many warn that the next stage of globalization--the offshoring of research and development to China and India--threatens the foundations of Western prosperity. But in The Venturesome Economy, acclaimed business and economics scholar Amar Bhide shows how wrong the doomsayers are. Using extensive field studies on venture-capital-backed businesses to examine how technology really advances in modern economies, Bhide explains why know-how developed abroad enhances--not diminishes--prosperity at home, and why trying to maintain the U.S. lead by subsidizing more research or training more scientists will do more harm than good. When breakthrough ideas have no borders, a nation's capacity to exploit cutting-edge research regardless of where it originates is crucial: "venturesome consumption"--the willingness and ability of businesses and consumers to effectively use products and technologies derived from scientific research--is far more important than having a share of such research. In fact, a venturesome economy benefits from an increase in research produced abroad: the success of Apple's iPod, for instance, owes much to technologies developed in Asia and Europe. Many players--entrepreneurs, managers, financiers, salespersons, consumers, and not just a few brilliant scientists and engineers--have kept the United States at the forefront of the innovation game. As long as their venturesome spirit remains alive and well, advances abroad need not be feared. Read The Venturesome Economy and learn why--and see how we can keep it that way.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Convincing Discussion November 9, 2008
I found Bhide's new book excellent on a number of levels. He makes quite convincing overall cases for his leading theses: first, that 'venturesome' actors throughout the US economy --including especially businesses as customers willing to try out new technologies offered them-- have been the key to the US distinctive productivity performance and second, the related and surprising proposition that fundamental research --so long as it gets done somewhere--has not been and won't be the driver of relative growth performance for the US in the future.
Bhide does a good job with the supporting lines of his inquiry. He provides a first-rate description of the whys and hows of venture capital-supported enterprises. He also carries the argument that many, even large-scale investments in new processes and techniques in the services sector and elsewhere that have turned out to be fundamentally important to productivity advances were done, not with a fine economic calculus of costs and benefits, but rather in an entrepreneurial, venturesome spirit in the face of 'Knightian,' unquantifiable uncertainty.
I found the book rich with nuanced and illuminating business examples taken from his research for the book. Nice to have a bold set of propositions built from a real-world, fact- based approach.
 Fresh Thinking, plenty to argue with November 4, 2008
I read this book as I had come across the author's views that that, in addition to innovative inputs , entrepreurial firms require venturesome and resourceful customers who are willing to take a chance on their products and services. Too often I think innovation is viewed as the result of back room boffins planning and researching, whereas in fact the real world of trial, error and customers who are willing to adapt and suppliers who are willing to change is more real. There is a wonderful Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert proudly shows Dogbert the world's first video phone. Dilbert is ecstatic at his purchase, placing it on his desk saying `and all we have to do now is wait for someone else to buy one and we can talk'. Dogbert ruefully notes that societies material progress relies on people like Dilbert.
Amar Bhide's an Indian-born, professor of Business at Columbia elegantly begins his discussion of innovation as follows "Just as a devout Hindu might begin a journey with a prayer to the Lord Ganesh, it is obligatory to start a discussion on modern innovation by invoking Joseph Schumpeter" Having nodded towards the master, he then proceeds to deconstruct, if not actually slaughter, the sacred cow that is the Schumpeterian model of innovation. This for me is a major strength of the book,it has become fashionable to take creative destruction - the utter replacement of one technology by another, as the basis for the cycles of prosperity and innovation. Yet the reality is somewhat different - in the 1930's typewriters were predicted to eliminate the need to write by hand, yet in 1990 sixteen billion pencils were sold; and
In most markets, a large majority of people will possess both a landline and a mobile phone, despite the potential of the mobile to replace the landline. While I believe that creative destruction as a model remains important for companies investing in new product research - as in Cristensen;s `innovators dilemma' and Foster's `attacker's advantage', however Bhide's view that markets remain both more sophisticated and complex than one simple model, is both instructive and refreshing.
Bhide's core argument is that the US consumer is assertive, adventurous and capable - in short, venturesome - in relation to new products. In what other market would such a significant group of customers exist who would be so open to products such as the iPod, who are willing to pay prices which will justify significant investment and who are open to being `experimented upon' ( ref. Fredrich Hayek). Bhide reviews the work of a sample of US - based venture capital firms and the ventures they invest in, to draw conclusions about the exceptionalism of the US customer. In a variation of the `coming to America' theme, Bhide documents how `making it' in the US first is hugely important for success, even for firms whose founders originate elsewhere. Indeed the US customer is blind to the national origins of product, the company or the individuals involved in providing the product/service.
I had three major concerns with this thesis - firstly the sample set, as Bhide acknowledges ( indeed he has a major sideswipe at ecomoetric analysis) , was not scientifically representative, and perhaps cannot be, but therefore runs the risk of being anecdotal. More importantly the VCs were US-based, I would have felt more comfortable with comparisons between success rates in US versus other VCs (the Israeli VC industry is well developed) and with other developmental paradigms - what about emerging companies in BRIC countries (for example)? Most importantly of all, the US is exceptional in terms of GDP per capita and technological prowess, so it may be easy to fall into the trap of stating that because it is rich, it is exceptional. An alternative may be that because it has been exceptional - no invasions in the 20th Century, opposed by an economic system which imploded - it is now rich. I think it would have been useful to examine markets in technology areas where the US is not the leader (eg. Korea for broadband Access, Europe for mobile phone penetration) to see whether venturesome consumers exist, or whether other parameters are important. I find it difficult to believe that US consumers are so significant different to other consumers, in their uptake of new products, that this justifies a permanent exceptionalism. Nonetheless the arguments made are thought provoking and useful.
Bhide remains optimistic about the potential for American industry and competitive enterprise within the global economy, and frequently disparages and disproves proponents of exclusion and economic and/or technological nationalism. Such optimism is refreshing (it should be noted the book was written before the Credit Crunch morphed into the Crisis of Capitalism), and forward looking, nonetheless it remains to be seen if (and it's a huge, world-transforming if) Chinese and Indian GDP per capita approaches US figures, will US firms and society still maintain their competitive edge. This is not to argue for economic nationalism, just to put a dampening comment that it is unlikely that 6% of the worlds population will remain so much a determinant of technological innovation and economic prosperity in a future where another 40% is coming to economic self-determination.
One last point, I was puzzled by the inclusion of chapters on immigration into the US. In so far as I understood it, I think the point being made was that the US society was a welcoming meritocracy, which formed a mutually beneficial relationship with all, suitably qualified and motivated, comers. I did not think this fit with the general thrust of the argument, though its possible that my reading the book was tilted towards what it had to say about innovation, and that I was not sufficiently connected to the prosperity-generating side of Bhide's argument.
An innovative look at innovation November 4, 2008
The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World is a phenomenally insightful book that looks at the sources of innovation and the characteristics of innovations that receive venture funding.
The evidence is compelling and surprising. The data suggests that the key to innovation is finding solutions that already exist. Successful innovation is not about inventing new solutions. It is about inventing new applications of existing solutions. This book may be more powerful as we learn to really leverage the Internet in development.
It may modify innovation and R&D at every institution that studies the book.
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