I discuss and compare alternative approaches to integrating bounded rationality with the theory of economic organization, concentrating on the organizational capabilities approach, which is strongly influenced by the works of Nelson and Winter, organizational economics, particularly transaction...

This paper analyses the association between inter-firm collaborative agreements and the technological capabilities of the largest European electronics firms between 1984 and 1997. To this purpose we collected information about 2,240 R&D agreements sponsored by the EU and 1,970 non sponsored...

The pace of technological innovation since World War II is dramatically accelerating following the commercial exploitation of the Internet. Since the mid 90’s fiber optics capacity (infrastructure for transmission of information including voice and data) has incremented over one hundred times...

In this paper, we argue that together with individual inventors and firms, what Robert C. Allen (1983) has termed as collective invention settings (that is settings in which rival firms freely release each other pertinent technical information), were also a crucial source of innovation in the...

It has been demonstrated that users occasionally innovate. However, it can now be observed that even end-consumers act as a source novel product designs. A case study of a firm, and “its” consumers - from the computer games industry - illustrates how sourcing of consumer knowledge has...

An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the joint OECD/Eurostat workshop on innovation surveys, OECD, Paris, June 30th 1999. The paper addresses some issues about the nature of innovation surveys (particularly the new Community Innovation Surveys) and how they might be improved to take...

Most international trade theory, whether classical or "new," predictst that increased globalization will be associated with increased locational concentration of particular economic activities, and hence increased specialization of national and regional economies, due to the greater freedom for...

The structure of wages and employment has shifted against the low-skilled in many OECD countries over the last decade. Many authors have attributed this shift to the impact of new technologies, and or technical change in general. This paper investigates and structures the growing body of...

The purpose of this paper -as a part of a wider research project - is to analyze the concept of production network from a methodological and theoretical viewpoint based on a three-plane perspective. These dimensions are the linkages among agents, the innovation activities, and the social...