Techno Economic Paradigms

'Techno-Economic Paradigms' presents a series of essays discussing one of the most interesting and talked-about socio-economic theories of our times: techno-economic paradigm shifts.

‘Techno-Economic Paradigms’ presents a series of essays by the leading academics in the field discussing one of the most interesting and talked-about socio-economic theories of our times, 'techno-economic paradigm shifts', and its role in explaining processes of innovation and development. This festschrift honours Carlota Perez, founder of the theory of 'techno-economic paradigm shifts'.

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital presents a novel interpretation of the good and bad times in the economy, taking a long-term perspective and linking technology and finance in an original and convincing way.

This book provides some new ideas on the conceptualization of a shift in technological paradigm, and it explores in depth the relevance of this concept for research on innovation systems. It examines text-mining software and analyzes patent data as well as academic and business journals to illustrate the paradigm shift of newly emerging technologies, such as the all-solid-state battery and automatic driving for electric vehicles, and surgical robots. It also explores the critical role of emerging software technologies by examining US, EU, and Japanese patent statistics. Highlighting the paradigm shift of technologies since the 1990s and the geographical dispersion of innovative capabilities, it identifies essential trends toward new innovation systems as well as the concentration and dispersion of national and corporate R&D capabilities that have taken place as a result. In this new paradigm, the competitiveness of a company is decisively determined by other innovations in systems and management. Since the 1990s, when a network economy began to be established and technological know-how came to be easily transferred across borders, the changing structure of technological activities has required organizations with traditional integral and closed architecture models to move toward open innovation or modular architectures. These changes involve wider technological areas and cognitive diversity among international inter-firm and intra-firm R&D networks. This book is highly recommended not only to academicians but also to business people seeking an in-depth and up-to-date overview of the paradigm shift of technologies and new innovation systems.

Innovation, in economic activity, in managerial concepts and in engineering design, results from creative activities, entrepreneurial strategies and the business climate. Innovation leads to technological, organizational and commercial changes, due to the relationships between enterprises, public institutions and civil society organizations. These innovation networks create new knowledge and contribute to the dissemination of new socio-economic and technological models, through new production and marketing methods. Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 is the first of the two volumes that comprise this book. The main objectives across both volumes are to study the innovation processes in todays information and knowledge society; to analyze how links between research and business have intensified; and to discuss the methods by which innovation emerges and is managed by firms, not only from a local perspective but also a global one. The studies presented in these two volumes contribute toward an understanding of the systemic nature of innovations and enable reflection on their potential applications, in order to think about the meaning of growth and prosperity.

Long before the pandemic, economies across the world were in trouble, with growth slowing across the board. This downturn coincided with growing inequality and social exclusion. Rising political dissatisfaction with ruling elites fuelled the rise of populism. Add to this the alarming environmental emergency and few can deny we live in a time of multiple sustainability crises. While this conclusion can lead to despair, in this broad-ranging book Raphael Kaplinsky, a leading development policy analyst, argues that the future is not necessarily bleak. Interrogating the causes and nature of the systemic crises we are living through, he shows how the challenges which we now face mirror previous historical epochs, in which dominant ‘techno-economic’ paradigms flourish, mature and run into crisis. In each case, decisive action is required to move to a more economically and socially sustainable world. In our time, we are witnessing the exhaustion of the Mass Production paradigm. How we herald and manage the transition to the next paradigm – that of Information and Communications Technologies – will determine our capacity to build a more prosperous, equitable and environmentally sustainable world. This book sets out an integrated agenda for action by multiple stakeholders to achieve this end.

This book promotes the creation of advanced knowledge-based economies driven by innovation networks and the continuous development of human capital and capability. It provides valuable insights into the growing emergence of knowledge-based industries of the Asia Pacific, and highlights research on: modes of creativity and innovation; intellectual property; the components of national innovation systems such as firms, education and training; knowledge and technical infrastructure; and public policy. The Asia Pacific region is currently in the process of transforming from being the manufacturing centre of the global economy to a centre of innovation for the knowledge economy, with the successful IPO of Alibaba in 2014 being a prime example of this shift. From a neo-Schumpeterian perspective, the region is increasingly engaged in shortening and intensifying cycles of innovation. The historic agreement at the Beijing APEC meeting between China and the US to radically reduce carbon emissions indicates that one imperative of this innovation is to contribute to sustainability. The fact that the US Government is moving away from this historic commitment, while the Chinese Government is endorsing the commitment, indicates an emerging opportunity for Asia to lead the world technologically in a vital industrial sector of the future.

"Members of the anti-globalization movement will find the explanations given in this book insightful, as will employees of international organizations due to the important policy messages. The theoretical interest within the book will appeal to development economists and evolutionary economists, and policymakers and politicians will find the explanations of the present failure of many small nations in the periphery invaluable."--BOOK JACKET.