Flexibility and Stability in the Innovating Economy by Maureen McKelvey (Professor of the Economics of Innovation, Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)
Interactions between business, technological, public policy, and organization processes are changing the way modern economies work. In this book the concept of 'change' is problematized in terms of flexibility and stability across these processes, examining the central issues of industrial dynamics, structural change, and transformation. It adopts a perspective of the economy that sees it as an inherently dynamic and complex system, consisting of diverse components and activities, which interact and change in different ways over time. This means placing an emphasis not only on economic transformation, but also on the diverse actors in this transformation who are deciding, doing, and acting in ways which affect the outcomes of this change. Chapters are grouped within three themes, which readers will find are core to the fields of innovation studies, industrial dynamics, and evolutionary economics: Experimenting and Inertia; Evolution and Adaptation of Structure; and Innovating and Technological Transformation.