Innovation and Sustainable Learning in Small Low-Tech Firms : Structural Dynamics, Power and Governance in Industrial Networks

ISBN-13: 9783639154870 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 160 str.

Andrea Gallina

Opis

This book is about how small firms in low-techsectors survive industrial restructuring. By lookingat the packaging industry in a high wage country suchas Denmark the book investigates the dynamic of theprocess of innovation within industrial networks.Contrary to the Schumpeterian approach to innovationas a source of creative destruction, innovation inthese networks leads to sustainable construction ofadvantages without jeopardizing the existence ofother firms. Sustainable learning is crucial toinnovation and firms success, but only if the twoconditions of access and willingness to shareknowledge are respected. In order to define thedynamic of the learning processes and the sources ofinnovation and knowledge, the book introduces a structural dynamic approach based on the analysisof the interrelations between power structures,learning processes and markets dynamics.

O autorze

Lecturer (Associate Professor) in international political economy
and innovation at the Department of Society and Globalization,
Roskilde University, Denmark. He works as independent consultant
for international NGOs, the United Nations and the European
Commission in the areas of international migration, innovation
and local development.