Innovation in Low-Tech Firms and Industries (Industrial Dynamics, Entrepreneuship and Innovation Series)

✍ Scribed by Hartmut Hirsch-kreinsen, David Jacobson

• Publisher: Edward Elgar Pub
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 312
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

It is a general understanding that the advanced economies are currently undergoing a fundamental transformation into knowledge-based societies. There is a firm belief that this is based on the development of high-tech industries. Correspondingly, in this scenario low-tech sectors appear to be less important. A critique of this widely held belief is the starting point of this book. It is often overlooked that many of the current innovation activities are linked to developments inside the realm of low-tech. Thus the general objective of the book is to contribute to a discussion concerning the relevance of low-tech industries for industrial innovativeness in the emerging knowledge economy.Providing examples of both theoretical and empirical research in this area, "Innovation in Low-tech Firms and Industries" will be of great interest to postgraduate students and academic researchers in innovation studies. It will also appeal to policy makers in the field of innovation policy as well as industrial economists and sociologists interested in traditional industries in advanced economies.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Copyright......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
Figures......Page 7
Tables......Page 8
Contributors......Page 10
Introduction......Page 17
1. The low-tech issue......Page 19
PART I Innovation in LMT: conditions and requirements......Page 39
2. How to grasp innovativeness of organizations: outline of a conceptual tool......Page 41
3. Standard-setting competition and open innovation in non-HT industries: mechanical engineering and machinery......Page 59
4. The moral economy of technology indicators......Page 80
5. Critical comments on the ‘moral economy of technology indicators’......Page 101
PART II Technological diffusion and interrelationships between sectors......Page 107
6. Distributed knowledge bases in low and medium-technology industries......Page 109
7. LMT innovations in a high-tech environment: human-factor ‘tools’ for the airline industry......Page 134
8. Technology fusion and organizational structures in low-and-medium-tech companies......Page 156
9. Industrial innovations in relation to service sectors......Page 176
10. The relevance of services for high-, medium- and low-tech firms – an empirical analysis in German industry......Page 191
PART III Local versus global perspectives in innovation......Page 211
11. Innovation activities versus competitiveness in low- and medium-technology-based economies: the case of Poland......Page 213
12. Low-tech industries between traded and untraded interdependencies: a dynamic concept of industrial complementarities......Page 237
13. High-tech innovation in catching-up countries: conditions and perspectives......Page 261
14. Worshipping at the shrine of the knowledge-based society?......Page 283
Index......Page 301