The theme of the book is software innovation - creativity and innovation in the development, design and exploitation of information systems (software). Software innovation is an important topic, since it now underpins most of the significant technological advances in modern societies, but surprisingly little researched. Nor does it figure much in the education of system designers and developers. This education is mainly focused on instrumental and normative techniques - efficient programming underpinned by method and engineering techniques. System developers learn an engineering (or business or design) craft – but sometimes forget the point of their endeavours. This is to provide software and systems which change the practices of their user communities – a core definition of innovation.

Why study software innovation?

Motivations for understanding and studying software innovation are split into three perspectives:

• The global perspective
• The competition perspective
• The developer perspective