Knowledge Flows in National Systems of Innovation: A Comparative Analysis of Sociotechnical Constituencies in Europe and Latin America

The search for the key to economic growth has proved elusive and contentious. This book uses new empirical evidence to propose an integrated approach for achieving strong industrial and technological capabilities to form the basis for regional and national economic development.

The authors use the experiences of countries in Europe and Latin America to show that socio-technical constituencies play a fundamental role in innovation based economic development at both a regional and national level. By blending insights from the industrial cluster and national innovation system approaches with the socio-technical constituencies approach, the authors successfully integrate long standing debates such as agency structure and micro-meso-macro analysis. The work is based both on a theoretical effort to build a new framework for economic growth, and on a number of concrete experiences from a number of countries in Europe and Latin America.

Knowledge Flows in National Systems of Innovation will prove essential reading for scholars of innovation, technology and economic development.

Edited by Roberto López-Martínez, Research Associate, Systems Engineering Department, Institute of Engineering, National University of Mexico, and Consultant and Invited Lecturer, Economics and Management of Technical Change Postgraduate Programme, Metropolitan University of Mexico, Mexico and Andrea Piccaluga, Associate Professor of Business Administration, University of Lecce and Research Associate, Laboratory of Economics and Management, St Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy