The science of graphs and networks has become by now a well-established tool for modelling and analyzing a variety of systems with a large number of interacting components. Starting from the physical sciences, applications have spread rapidly to the natural and social sciences, as well as to economics, and are now further extended, in this volume, to the concept of innovations, viewed broadly.
In an abstract, systems-theoretical approach, innovation can be understood as a critical event which destabilizes the current state of the system, and results in a new process of self-organization leading to a new stable state.
The contributions to this anthology address different aspects of the relationship between innovation and networks. The various chapters incorporate approaches in evolutionary economics, agent-based modeling, social network analysis and econophysics and explore the epistemic tension between insights into economics and society-related processes, and the insights into new forms of complex dynamics.
Author(s): Andreas Pyka, Andrea Scharnhorst (auth.), Andreas Pyka, Andrea Scharnhorst (eds.)
Series: Understanding Complex Systems
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 330
Tags: Economic Theory;Complexity;Methodology of the Social Sciences;Engineering Economics, Organization, Logistics, Marketing;Communications Engineering, Networks;Operations Research/Decision Theory
Front Matter....Pages 1-9
Introduction: Network Perspectives on Innovations: Innovative Networks – Network Innovation....Pages 1-16
Front Matter....Pages 17-17
Knowledge Networks: Structure and Dynamics....Pages 19-41
Death of Distance in Science? A Gravity Approach to Research Collaboration....Pages 43-57
Evolution and Dynamics of Networks in ‘Regional Innovation Systems’ (RIS)....Pages 59-100
Agent-Based Modelling of Innovation Networks – The Fairytale of Spillover....Pages 101-126
Structural Holes, Innovation and the Distribution of Ideas....Pages 127-144
Front Matter....Pages 147-147
Tools from Statistical Physics for the Analysis of Social Networks....Pages 149-187
Modeling Evolving Innovation Networks....Pages 189-269
Propagation of Innovations in Complex Patterns of Interaction....Pages 271-286
Sensitive Networks – Modelling Self-Organization and Innovation Processes in Networks....Pages 285-327
Back Matter....Pages 1-2
