Recent studies of sectoral specialisation and technological development across market economies have shown how contrasting patterns of technical change can be explained by the different institutional frameworks that have become established in distinct types of economy (see, e.g., Casper, 2000;...

Innovative firms face two major kinds of risks in developing new technologies: competence destruction and appropriability. High levels of technical uncertainty and radical changes in knowledge in some fields generate high technical failure risks and make it difficult to plan research and...

Different ways of competing in markets came to dominate particular sectors, regions and national market economies in the postwar period as a result of variations in market conditions, technological regimes and institutional contexts. These varied in terms of production volumes, basis of...

The nature and economic role of legally constituted firms varies between market economies and changes over time. In particular, the governance of leading firms and how they develop distinctive organisational capabilities vary between institutional regimes and their supporting political-economic...

The governance and organisation of scientific research undertaken for publication have altered significantly since the end of the Second World War in many industrialised economies. These changes have had significant effects on authority relations governing research goals, approaches and the...

Recent changes in the funding and governance of research universities have attempted to make them more strategically active in contributing to national goals. However, the ability of universities to develop strategic capabilities as cohesive organisations is limited by the inherent uncertainty...

This paper discusses the introduction and implementation of ISO 9000 qualitystandards in the German and French car industry. Rather than a transfer of a set ofconcrete, well-understood rules, which are ready to be implemented, the paperargues, the quality standards have to be reconstructed and...

How are new forms of industrial organization accommodated into a country'slegal frameworks, and what effect does this have on the ability of firms toinnovate. Variations in the broad institutional organization of the German andUS political economies result in different processes of contract...