Localisation of the sustainable development goals in an emerging nation
- Authors: Jain, Ameeta , Courvisanos, Jerry , Subramaniam, Nava
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Public Administration and Development Vol. 41, no. 5 (2021), p. 231-243
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- Description: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed to by all member countries of the United Nations, require urgent action on the world's most pressing problems. Success requires bottom-up participation of local stakeholders. This case study of Timor-Leste—a fledgling, fossil fuel-supported economy—maps the awareness and commitment of grassroots stakeholders to the SDGs and the roadblocks to localisation. Guiding this paper is Habermas’ view of societal evolution and communicative action, which aids analysing the socio-political and structural dynamics affecting SDGs localisation in a developing nation. This study reveals stakeholder inability to articulate a clear vision for the SDGs, lack of human capital and funds, a weak public-administrative system, strong socio-political nuances, and poor governance infrastructure to support multi-stakeholder relationships. This paper provides insights for developing a more nuanced and robust public intervention to support local stakeholders that will enable knowledge, cultural and communication transformations required for successful SDGs localisation. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Innovation economics and the role of the innovative entrepreneur in economic theory
- Authors: Courvisanos, Jerry , Mackenzie, Stuart
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Innovation Economics and Management Vol. 2, no. 14 (2014), p. 41-61
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- Description: Innovation has become a widely used, but ill-defined, everyday term in the 21st century. Firms are urged to be innovative to gain or sustain a ‘competitive edge’; consultants advertise their strategic advice as the essence of innovation; the survival of local organisations depends on the capacity building that comes from innovation; schools are exalted to have innovation in their curriculum; and universities promote themselves as leaders in innovation. Likewise, the term entrepreneur, used to describe the human agency behind innovation, is equally ill-defined in everyday use. Entrepreneurs’ value to society varies widely from positive to negative depending on the emphasis of journalists, academics, businesspersons, unionists, right-wing think tanks and left-wing activists. Such imprecise definition is, however, undesirable in academic discourse and the focus of this paper is the shifting role of the innovative entrepreneur in economic theory and some of the reasons for this dynamic. In this paper, innovation economics is defined as a body of economic theory that contends a priori that economic development is the result of appropriated knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship operating within an institutional environment of systems of innovation. This distinguishes innovation economics from other branches of economics, including mainstream neoclassical theory, which views capital accumulation as the primary driver of economic development, chiefly in the form of economic growth. In the innovation economics paradigm, the socio-economic world functions as an open and complex system, exhibiting tendencies to adaptation. This isin contrast to neoclassical economics that regards the economy as a closed system exhibiting tendencies to mechanical equilibrium. A history of economic thought perspective is adopted in this paper to first trace out the rise of the innovative entrepreneur in early theories of political economy, to in effect create a nascent innovation economics. Then, the disappearance of innovation economics is facilitated by the infanticide of the innovative entrepreneur at the hands of neoclassical theory. In the first half of the 20th century, the history of economic thought marked the resurrection of the entrepreneur as an innovating agent by Joseph Schumpeter and then the nurturing of this agent in economic theory by Micha
Environment, innovation and sustainable development: Introduction to an interdisciplinary approach
- Authors: Courvisanos, Jerry
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Innovation Economics Vol. 2, no. 8 (2011), p. 3-10
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- Description: The disappointing outcome from the United Nations Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change in December 2009 affected many social researchers who had hoped that the world leaders would shine a guiding light towards a sustainable development paradigm shift in society. A guiding light that would provide a clear pathway for all the world’s citizens to an environmentally safe and equitable “Spaceship Earth” (Boulding, 1966). Much discussion arose after this failed summit about the need for ‘bottom-up’ adaptation and resilience as the alternative. Valuable as such an approach is to address the environmental concerns, its incremental change and modest institutional reforms limit the extent of sustainable development. Paradigm shift requires creative destruction of the type Joseph Schumpeter advocated when in times of crisis. Innovation lies at the heart of such a radical approach. Based on the need to raise the profile of this innovation approach to sustainable development, the Research Network on Innovation – the sponsor of this journal – decided to organise the next biennial Spirit of Innovation conference around the theme ‘Environment, Innovation and Sustainable Development’. Thus was that on the 7th and 8th October 2010, the “Spirit of Innovation IV” Forum was held at the Euromed Management School in Marseille.
- Description: 2003009224
Regional innovation for sustainable development : An Australian perspective
- Authors: Courvisanos, Jerry
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Innovation Economics Vol. 1, no. 3 (2009), p. 119-143
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- Description: 2003007338