Architectures of Knowledge: Firms, Capabilities, and Communities

Architectures of Knowledge seeks to demonstrate that a recognition of the importance of the role of knowledge in economies may lead to a new conception of the firm and public policy. To construct an alternative theorization of knowledge formation and knowledge governance in firms, the book assembles together the most advanced research in different disciplines: economics, science and technology studies, cognitive sciences (including situated and distributed cognition), economic geography, and management science. Placing the concept of community at the very centre of the argument, the book arrives at an understanding of the way in which new places of knowledge are created and mobilized in economic activities.

Ash Amin is Professor of Geography at Durham University. He has held Fellowships and Visiting Professorships at the Universities of Naples, Venice, Bologna, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Uppsala. He is a founding co-editor of the Review of International Political Economy and co-editor of Cities. He was Member of the Steering Committee of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) from its foundation in 1989 to 1999. He was member of the Economic and Social Research Council's Research Priorities Board from 1997 to 2001. He is an academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. His research interests lie in the fields of urban and regional development, the geography of the post-mass production economy, spatialities of globalisation, governance alternatives to market and hierarchy, urban democracy and the multicultural city, the geography of the social economy, and the cultural economy. Patrick Cohendet is Professor of Economics at University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg, France. He has held Fellowships and Visiting Professorships at the Universities of UVA (Charlottesville, Virginia, USA), Toyo (Tokyo, Japan), and HEC-Montréal (Canada). He is one of the co-founders and members of BETA (Bureau d'économie théorique et appliquée), a research group in economics and management of the University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg. He is member of the commitee of national research (CNRS) in economics and management. He was Member of CADAS (comité d'applications de l'académie des sciences ) from 1989 to 1999. His research interests lie in the fields of economics of innovation, economics of knowledge, theory of the firm, theory of decision, industrial organization and research policy.