Contents

• Introduction
• The 20th Century – A Century of Mass Production
• The Mass Innovation Phenomenon
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Conclusion
• References

Description

Innovation originates from the Latin word innovāre, which means to renew or alter, while the dictionary meaning of the verb innovate, is ‘to introduce something new; make changes in anything established’ (Online Etymology Dictionary 2009). Charles Leadbeater is a world famous and much celebrated innovation strategist (Chartered Management Institute 2009). His work on innovation including creativity has been used by corporations and countries across nations. His book ‘We-think: the power of mass creativity’ is a culmination of his views on innovation and plots the development of large scale collective voluntary perspectives on innovation with examples of the Wikipedia and Linux amongst others (Leadbeater 2008). He has for long propagated that the 21st Century is the Century of Innovation whereas the 20th Century was that of mass production.
This paper will discuss the issues raised by Leadbeater and analyse them in the modern day context. The paper first briefly looks at the origins of mass production and its impact on the American society and criticisms. It then introduces Leadbeater’s work on the impact of the web and then critically examines it to draw logical conclusions.