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Entrepreneurship-Professionalism-Leadership: A Framework for Nurturing and Managing the R&D Workforce for a National Innovation Ecosystem

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Entrepreneurship–Professionalism–Leadership

Abstract

Today, many developed countries around the world are embracing science, technology and innovation as an important engine for economic growth. Innovation is fundamentally a human activity and a social one that involves more than any single individual’s efforts. It is thus important not only to study core innovation processes but also the approach to nurturing and managing the people in the innovation system. In this chapter, we highlight four unique challenges of innovation arising from the unique management and development needs of highly specialized scientific/engineering workers for innovation, given the motivational complexity and diversity of this workforce. We propose that Entrepreneurship, Professionalism and Leadership (EPL) can serve as a broad framework to specify the dimensions of talent needed for innovation to succeed at different levels of analysis from individuals to teams, units, organizations and even the national innovation ecosystem. We discuss potential applications of EPL framework for innovation workforce development and human resource management and call for more research using this framework to better understand and thereby enhance the nurturing and management of R&D personnel for the innovation economy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Kim-Yin Chan & Marilyn A. Uy

  2. Ministry of Defense, Singapore, Singapore

    Kwee Hoon Lim

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  1. Kim-Yin Chan
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Correspondence to Kim-Yin Chan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Moon‐Ho Ringo Ho

  2. School of Management, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

    Jeffrey C. Kennedy

  3. Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Marilyn A. Uy

  4. Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Kim-Yin Chan

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Chan, KY., Lim, K.H., Uy, M.A. (2020). Entrepreneurship-Professionalism-Leadership: A Framework for Nurturing and Managing the R&D Workforce for a National Innovation Ecosystem. In: Ho, M., Kennedy, J., Uy, M., Chan, KY. (eds) Entrepreneurship–Professionalism–Leadership. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3121-7_10

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