M. Pilar Opazo is a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in the Work and Organization Studies group at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is the coauthor of two Spanish-language volumes, Communications of Organizations and Negotiation: Competing or Collaborating, and her work has been published in Sociological Theory and the International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science.
Appetite for Innovation offers a backstage view of one of
the world's most interesting restaurants, its remarkable
laboratory, and the foundation that was created after Ferran Adria
made the unusual decision to close his hugely successful
restaurant. M. Pilar Opazo was afforded unusually close access, and
her insider account is rich and intriguing. The processual view of
innovation is useful, as it highlights the many elements that are
needed to be galvanized in support of an expansive vision. --
Walter W. Powell, Stanford University
Opazo gives us the inside story of elBulli, a restaurant whose
climb to global influence mirrors the culture of today's innovation
economy, and its charismatic chef Ferran Adria, whose passion for
creating a new cuisine is driven as much by science as by art. This
book will fascinate all kinds of innovators and entrepreneurs-and
those who want to understand how a creative organization works. --
Sharon Zukin, author of Naked City: The Death and Life of
Authentic Urban Places
Itself an exemplar of creativity and innovation, Appetite for
Innovation opens elBulli to reveal the systematic structures
and practices that brought world renown to a small restaurant in
the mountains of Spain. A beautifully written, analytically sharp
ethnography, Opazo's book is a must-read for organizations of all
kinds, scholars, chefs, entrepreneurs, culture specialists, and
foodies everywhere. -- Diane Vaughan, Columbia University
The tendency when discussing the success of elBulli has been simply
to proclaim the genius of chef Ferran Adria, but Opazo shows that
genius is not enough. To have an impact beyond a narrow coterie
requires a disciplined and organized inventory of accomplishments
and the ability to win over adherents. She thus reveals the
infrastructure of success and the paradoxical relationship between
willingness to destroy previous accomplishments and practices to
push forward an unstable creativity. -- Paul Freedman, Yale
University
Innovation? Creativity? Opazo poses the perennially vexatious
question of their relationship. The answers that this illuminating
study suggests bear both on the sociology of organizations and the
organization of creativity. In an ethnographic investigation of
Ferran Adria's celebrated restaurant, Opazo brings to bear the
sociologist's attention to social structure, the historian's
understanding of archives, and the journalist's feel for the
striking detail. Appetite for Innovation is as great a
pleasure to read as it is profitable to contemplate. -- Priscilla
Parkhurst Ferguson, Columbia University
Working at the creative intersection of organizational sociology,
and sociology of knowledge and culture, Opazo provides a sharp
framing of the routinization of innovation and charisma at elBulli,
the highest ranked restaurant in the over-heated world of haute
cuisine. In the process she pushes the ethnography of the
commercial kitchen towards the study of scientific laboratories and
art worlds, investigating their epistemic practices, organizational
innovations and creative rhetorics. Appetite for Innovation
is a terrific book to study and teach organizational innovation and
field transformation. -- Krishnendu Ray, New York University,
president of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, and
author of The Ethnic Restaurateur
Opazo has written a fascinating organizational and business
analysis of the restaurant and, in the process, produced an
insightful account of how a culture of innovation can be achieved
and sustained. * Forbes.com *
Opazo examines elBulli with a sharp sociological eye, creating a
detailed case study in what she calls the 'production of
innovation.' -- Theodore Kinni * strategy+business *
Opazo's investigation will engage anyone interested in the
intersection of business, creativity and organizational behaviour.
-- Sarah Murdoch * The Toronto Star *
Appetite for Innovation is a well-written, organizational
study about the factory of innovation that elBulli was and the
foundation it became; certainly a fascinating read for academics,
innovators, and chefs alike. * Food, Culture, and Society *
Lays bare the creative process in more detail than almost anything
I've read and enriches the debate about where true creativity comes
from. -- Brayden King * Contemporary Sociology *
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