Technology and Innovation

The business history of technology and innovation has come a long way from the days when economists had to be persuaded that firms had a role to play, and when the main debate focused on whether small firms or large firms were the true innovators. Organizational networks leading to successful innovation have usually contained both large and small enterprises exchanging mutually valuable information and expertise. It has become all too clear that innovation thrives on variety and open circulation of information, and that access to appropriate knowledge networks has been far more important than...

The business history of technology and innovation has come a long way from the days when economists had to be persuaded that firms had a role to play, and when the main debate focused on whether small firms or large firms were the true innovators. Organizational networks leading to successful innovation have usually contained both large and small enterprises exchanging mutually valuable information and expertise. It has become all too clear that innovation thrives on variety and open circulation of information, and that access to appropriate knowledge networks has been far more important than physical conditions or even access to boardrooms and executive offices. International comparisons are no longer pursued to explain leads and lags, but to point to different possible models for success, and our limited literature on innovation failures suggests that there is a lot more digging to be done.