AbstractThe world is in the early stages of a paradigm transition toward a global green economy. In this article, we propose the notion of green windows of opportunity, highlighting the importance of institutional changes in the creation of new opportunities for latecomer development. We emphasize how demand and mission-guided technical change influence the directionality of latecomer development and

AbstractOliver Williamson’s contributions to many subfields of economics are salutary. However, he was recognized by the Nobel Laureate Committee primarily for his work on the boundaries (scale and scope) of the firm. This tribute endeavors to marry Williamson’s transaction cost economics with a capabilities framework to obtain new insights into how the scope and scale of technology companies influence

The sectoral system framework has been adopted to study innovation and industrial dynamics in a wide range of sectors. However, recent development of the so-called “fourth industrial revolution” technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, Internet of Things, smartphones, and autonomous vehicles, has been blurring the boundaries of existing

Technological revolutions mark profound transformations in socio-economic systems. They are associated with the development and diffusion of general-purpose technologies (GPTs) that display very high degrees of pervasiveness, dynamism and complementarity. This article provides an in-depth examination of the technologies underpinning the “factory of the future” as profiled by the Industry 4.0 paradigm

AbstractThis article estimates the employment spillover effect of high-growth businesses on establishment-level employment growth. We assess whether the impact depends on the rurality of the region, and whether nearby establishments are high-growth businesses themselves. We also estimate the within-industry impact of high-growth establishments (HGEs). The findings show no impact of HGEs on net employment

AbstractModern evolutionary economics has come a long way from its beginnings in the writings of a few economists in the 1970s and 1980s. To a considerable extent, its evolution has been the result of the findings of empirical research, much but not all of it motivated by an explicit or implicit evolutionary perspective, which has fed back to modify and enrich the way evolutionary economists view the

AbstractThe literature on catch-up cycles has not yet systematically conceptualized how catch-up dynamics differ between the various industries that are emerging in the green techno-economic paradigm. We address this gap by connecting catch-up cycle theory with an industry typology from global innovation systems (GISs) literature, which distinguishes four generic industry types with footloose, spatially

AbstractLittle is known about the performance of service firms and its relations with foreign direct investment (FDI), in part due to methodological and conceptual challenges in measuring service performance. This article suggests two possible measures of service firm performance: total factor productivity (TFP) and markups, with modification needed to improve those measures for the service sector

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AbstractWe maintain that Chris Freeman’s approach to the study of the interplay between technical change and economic growth is still a very fertile source of insights. Alas, in much of mainstream research Freeman’s contribution is hardly considered. We show that this is a result of the basic assumptions of neoclassical growth theory (both “old” and “new”) that prevent a pregnant treatment of technical

AbstractAccording to Christopher Freeman technological revolutions play a key role in capitalist development. In this article, we ask to what extent more recent developments are consistent with the perspective advanced by Freeman. We focus on two issues in particular, the climate challenge and what has been dubbed “A Fourth Industrial Revolution” that is, advances in artificial intelligence and the

AbstractIn this article, we investigate whether academic technology-based knowledge crosses university boundaries or remains trapped inside the ivory tower. To do so, we rely on a matched sample approach to compare the spillovers generated by academic and firm patents using measures that take into account knowledge spilling-in and knowledge spilling-out of academia. Although it is true that knowledge

AbstractStudies show that founders’ industry-specific experience is beneficial to venture performance. However, we know little on the contingencies associated with such an effect. Using a panel dataset of 338 Italian high-tech ventures, we find that founders’ industry-specific experience positively affects venture performance. However, changes in the top management team (TMT) during the initial phases

AbstractMatching survey data on PhD scientists and engineers currently working in an R&D job in industry with publications and patents, we study the relation between their individual motives and the rate and nature of their inventive output. We find that individuals with a strong taste for science, that is motivated by intellectual challenge, autonomy, and contribution to society, create more novel

AbstractThis article analyzes as to how organizational design impacts firms’ innovation success in integrating knowledge that they have obtained from external partners. Responding to the call for more quantitative empirical analyses on limits and boundary conditions of external knowledge, I provide findings of a study of 97 firms with multi-informants from the Western-European automotive industry.

AbstractThis article contributes to and connects the literature on spatial innovation diffusion, entrepreneurship, and industry life-cycles by disentangling the relevance of local demand and supply in the adoption of wind energy production. More precisely, we evaluate the strength of local supply–push effects with those of local demand–pull over the course of the evolution of an industry and its main

AbstractWe propose a novel evaluation strategy to estimate local multipliers in Italy during 1996–2006. We find the presence of positive multipliers: 0.26–0.33 for the tradable sector (manufacturing) and 0.88–1.13 for the non-tradable sector (construction and services). They are lower than what was previously found for the United States but much higher than those identified for European and Asian countries

AbstractWe explore the innovation-enabling factors in young innovative companies (YICs) considering different elements of firm-specific absorptive capacity along with factors related to the industrial structure. Evidence from Italian YICs, known as innovative start-ups whose creation was prompted by the Start-up Act in 2012, shows that absorptive capacity factors matter with differences for product

In this article we argue that in order to understand failure or success in adapting to environmental change, we should better understand why people hesitate to pursue novel choices. This article asks: what forces hinder individuals’ exploration choices of different alternatives, and hence their ability to learn from them? To answer this question, this article looks to the cognitive sciences to identify

We revisit the competency trap and reexamine when it occurs. We show that a bias against alternatives that improve with practice does not require that learning is myopic in the sense of lacking foresight or failing to explore. The same bias occurs even if learners engage in substantial exploration and have foresight. In fact, we demonstrate that even a rational and foresighted learner, who follow an

AbstractNew theories of economic growth that are policy-relevant and connect with the histories of success and failure in economic development are urgently needed. This article compares the neoclassical (or market efficiency) school of thought with the production-capability school of thought which included Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List, and Joseph Schumpeter. Many affirmative, industrial policy

The garbage can account of organizations where problems, solutions, and people chase each other is often invoked but rarely studied since its publication 44 years ago. It has been critiqued for being a metaphor rather than a model, and offering a deterministic rather than stochastic account. We reline the garbage can model of organizational decision-making by modeling the arrival of problems, people

From Jim March we learned that organizational intelligence demands adaptation to the needs of a distant future as well as the efficient use of resources in the present. Commitment to new ideas that ...

Using patent data from 1976 to 2010 as indicators of inventive activity, we determine the concentration level of where inventive ideas originate and then examine how and why those concentrations change over time. The analysis finds pervasive deconcentration in every area related to the Information and Communication Technology equipment market. We find that booms and busts play an important role in

March’s long and varied career in organization theory encompasses a number of seemingly disparate themes from rationality, to ambiguity and the garbage can model, to exploration and exploitation in organizations. We examine March’s diverse research trajectory and conclude that his different insights can be brought together under one common theme for his career: that both procedural rationality and

This article argues that the transaction cost approach to the problem of organizing economic activities is undermined by a neglect of the consequences of the complexity of the interconnections among such activities and, in particular, of the complexity generated by conflict and divergent interests of the agents involved. With the increase of conflict, organizational equilibria cease to exist. Thus

Recent research has underscored the prominent role played by a small fraction of fast-growing new firms in contributing to aggregate net employment growth. While it is typically assumed that those firms experience this superior performance thanks to their ability in undertaking technological innovation, few empirical studies have explicitly addressed this issue. This article examines the innovation-employment

Recent evidence documents the weakness of market selection based on productivity differentials and the absence of cleansing during recessions. This paper argues that a possible explanation lies in the role of competitive rents, i.e., market advantages due to idiosyncrasies of the firm’s demand. Competitive rents allow firms to sustain profit independently of their internal efficiency, creating a selection

Using German establishment data, this paper examines the relationship between product market competition and the extent of employer provided training. We demonstrate that high product market competition is associated with increased training except when the competition is so severe as to threaten liquidation to a firm. We take this as evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship. We also make clear

In February 2014 Time magazine announced to the world that the first quantum computer had been put in use. One key component of this computer is the Josephson-junction, a superconducting device, based on completely different scientific and technological principles with respect to semiconductors. The origin of superconductors dates back to the 1960s, to a large-scale 20-year long IBM project aimed at

A vast literature documents a positive relationship between patents and companies stock market performance. Nevertheless, evidence on the influence of patents on companies’ debt capacity remains sparse. In this article, we examine the relationship between companies’ patent portfolios and their credit rating, providing relevant, albeit indirect, evidence on patents as a debt funding mechanism. Using

The adaptive strategies of firms depend on executives’ forward-looking cognitive search. We examine how cognitive search is affected by the formative experiences of the executives making up a firm’s top management team (TMT). Drawing on research on adaptive search, cognition, and the upper echelons, we examine the extent to which educational level, diversity of functional expertise, and the length