Skills, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Platform Era: Analyzing the New Reality of Professions and Entrepreneurship brings together two important areas: the separate research topics of professions, platforms, and entrepreneurship, and the various dimensions of what platformization means to work and to professions in contemporary societies. One of the most noteworthy global aspects in current societies is the intensifying presence of technology, to the extent that we can talk about the omnipotence of technologies, a kind of technological imperative that prevails in societies. This new type of technological imperative emerges in the working lives of practicing professionals from medical doctors to lawyers and from teachers to preachers. Platforms have become a powerful actor as enablers and reorganizers of work, creating new types of inequalities but also expanding the market relations for new professions such as social influencers. How do platforms govern and shape work and lead to new questions concerning organizing of work and professions? These are few of the key questions Poutanen and Kovalainen explore in this profound and insightful book.

"Uberization," "digitalization," "platform economy," "gig economy," and "sharing economy" are some of the buzzwords that characterize the current intense discussions about the development of the economy and work around the world, among both experts and laypersons. Immense changes in the ways goods are manufactured, business is done, work tasks are performed, education is accomplished, and so on, are clearly underway. This also means that demand for careful, first-rate social scientific analyses of the phenomena in question is rapidly growing. This edited volume gathers distinguished researchers from economics, business studies, organization studies, medicine, social psychology, occupational health, pedagogics, and sociology to put particular work in both public and private sectors and education in both academic and vocational settings at the focus of the emerging digitalized platform economy. The authors anchor their analyses and conceptual and theoretical work in distinctive empirical developments that are taking place in one of the leading countries of digitalization processes: Finland. Finnish case studies reflect general global developments and show their particular, context-related actualization in multiple ways. This double exposure enables the authors of this multi- and interdisciplinary volume to advance conceptualization and theorization of the key phenomena in digitalizing platform societies in novel, creative, and groundbreaking directions. This book will without doubt be of great value to academic researchers and students in the fields of economics, business studies, work studies, social sciences, education, technology, digitalization, platforms, occupational health, entrepreneurship, and professions.

This Handbook addresses the changing nature of academic labour markets, as they respond to moving university goals and developments in the measurement of research and teaching. Experts examine case studies from across the Global North and South and consider key issues such as equity, diversity, cross-border employment, and the precarity of academic labour.

This book examines corruption as a collective behavior problem for entrepreneurs. In particular, it considers Azjen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain perceived corruption and its effects on entrepreneurship. Heydari argues that behavioral intentions are shaped by variables such as attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. He proposes the novel Heydari Behavioral Synthesis Theory (HBST) model and applies it to two case studies to highlight the institutional, individual and societal factors that may inhibit entrepreneurial behavior. He concludes that corruption may persist not just because of difficulties in monitoring and prosecuting, but because it is systemically pervasive and discourages individual countermeasures. He closes by looking at anti-corruption policies and outlining future research directions. Arguing that widespread corruption may be theoretically mischaracterized in the literature, this book is of interest to policy-makers, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of management science, industrial and organizational psychology, entrepreneurship and corruption studies.

Building on past research in the broad field of stakeholder management and entrepreneurship, this book pushes a new agenda for more effective stakeholder engagement and management in entrepreneurial firms in Africa. Adomako, Gyensare, and Ahsan provide a novel lens for entrepreneurs to manage stakeholders in Africa and a sense of current best practices. Issues discussed include how external stakeholders such as government, nongovernmental organizations, media, civil society organizations, and local institutions influence the core business operations of entrepreneurial firms. The book confronts the central challenge of entrepreneurship by providing a comprehensive understanding of how entrepreneurs could identify, select, enroll, and coordinate stakeholders. In addition, it assesses issues such as stakeholder influence on corporate social responsibility strategy, sustainability, and environmental management of entrepreneurial firms. An essential read for postgraduate students, researchers, and public and private analysts.

This open access book explores the global challenges and experiences related to digital entrepreneurial activities, using carefully selected examples from leading companies and economies that shape world business today and tomorrow. Digital entrepreneurship and the companies steering it have an enormous global impact; they promise to transform the business world and change the way we communicate with each other. These companies use digitalization and artificial intelligence to enhance the quality of decisions and augment their business and customer operations. This book demonstrates how cloud services are continuing to evolve; how cryptocurrencies are traded in the banking industry; how platforms are created to commercialize business, and how, taken together, these developments provide new opportunities in the digitalized era. Further, it discusses a wide range of digital factors changing the way businesses operate, including artificial intelligence, chatbots, voice search, augmented and virtual reality, as well as cyber threats and data privacy management. “Digitalization mirrors the Industrial Revolution’s impact. This book provides a complement of perspectives on the opportunities emanating from such a deep seated change in our economy. It is a comprehensive collection of thought leadership mapped into a very useful framework. Scholars, digital entrepreneurs and practitioners will benefit from this timely work.” Gina O’Connor, Professor of Innovation Management at Babson College, USA “This book defines and delineates the requirements for companies to enable their businesses to succeed in a post-COVID19 world. This book deftly examines how to accomplish and achieve digital entrepreneurship by leveraging cloud computing, AI, IoT and other critical technologies. This is truly a unique “must-read” book because it goes beyond theory and provides practical examples.” Charlie Isaacs, CTO of Customer Connection at Salesforce.com, USA "This book provides digital entrepreneurs useful guidance identifying, validating and building their venture. The international authors developed new perspectives on digital entrepreneurship that can support to create impact ventures.” Felix Staeritz, CEO FoundersLane, Member of the World Economic Forum Digital Leaders Board and bestselling author of FightBack, Germany

Innovation and Collaboration in the Digital Era provides a holistic approach to collaborative innovation, innovation management and innovation leadership. It is full of practical advice and includes 34 interviews with high-level politicians, innovation industry leaders, academics and entrepreneurs discussing the reality of innovation and how to create change for a positive impact. Many quotes are included from researchers and practitioners in the innovation field who have participated as guests in the author’s podcast “Business of Collaboration” or in interviews with the Collabwith Magazine which she produces. This is a powerful book full of practical frameworks and one-page canvases which act as reminders of the value of making needs and expectations explicit. The author provides frameworks and tools that can be used to support collaboration journeys across different sectors and organizations. She also offers clarity to the reader for their innovation journey and brings a new perspective on how to innovate and understand innovation. Jara Pascual focuses on the importance of managing emotions and feelings of frustration which can be very common during a collaborative innovation process. She explores the interaction between Emotional Intelligence and business and shows how to remove and manage frustration and how to produce a positive outcome. Innovation and Collaboration in the Digital Era will empower the reader to take action and show how to change your conversation about innovation and collaboration. “Jara Pascual, with colleague Celia Avila-Rauch, has been able to distill and apply the ability model of emotional intelligence to the art and science of innovation and innovation leadership. In our work we note that feelings are not always facts but that emotions as a form of data. More than that, emotions can assist or facilitate with decision making, creativity and innovation rather than getting in the way, but only if leaders are “smart” about emotions and develop and deploy their emotional intelligence skills.” Dr David R Caruso, Emotional Intelligence Skills Group, Founder Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Research Affiliate