The extent to which firms can react creatively to rather than adjust passively against new techniques and practices is dependent on their command of technological knowledge and relative competence. This book explores the characteristics of the path dependent dynamics of localized technological change, demonstrating how the economics of complexity can inform our understanding of the economics of innovation and vice versa. The book is structured in three parts: part one focuses on the ingredients of the economics of localized technological change, focusing on the legacies of the key economists and a critical assessment. Part two explores the governance of the generation, dissemination, use and exploitation of localized technological knowledge. Part three elaborates on the basic dynamic mechanisms of localized technological change, combining theory with specific empirical models. The final perspectives articulate the relations between the economics of localized technological change, the economics of path dependence and the challenge of the emerging economics of complexity.
Author(s): Crist Antonelli
Edition: 1
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 432
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Contents......Page 10
Figures......Page 16
Tables......Page 18
1 Introduction......Page 20
Part I: The ingredients......Page 34
2 The dynamic legacies: Smith, Marx, Marshall and Schumpeter......Page 36
3 Localised technological change: A critical assessment......Page 66
Part II: The governance of localised technological knowledge......Page 82
4 Information economics for the economics of localised technological knowledge......Page 84
5 Models of knowledge and systems of governance......Page 103
6 The new dimensions of knowledge indivisibility: Fungibility, cumulability, compositeness and stickiness......Page 127
7 Knowledge and the theory of the firm: The interdependence among transaction, coordination and production......Page 139
8 The localised generation and appropriation of technological knowledge......Page 154
9 To use or to sell technological knowledge......Page 169
10 The governance of localised knowledge in the business sector......Page 186
11 The new economics of the university: A knowledge governance approach......Page 212
12 Towards non-exclusive property rights: Knowledge as an essential facility......Page 234
Part III: The introduction of localised technological change......Page 262
13 Localised technological change: The benchmark......Page 264
14 The system dynamics of collective knowledge: From gradualism and saltationism to punctuated change......Page 282
15 Factor markets: Constraints and inducements to innovation......Page 301
16 Localised product innovation: The role of proximity in the Lancastrian product space......Page 320
17 Diffusion as a process of creative adoption......Page 335
18 Path dependence and the quest for complexity......Page 352
19 Conclusions: Hysteresis and creativity......Page 375
Notes......Page 383
References......Page 398
Index......Page 416
