Innovation in Low-tech Firms and Industries

by Hirsch-kreinsen, Hartmut; Jacobson, David

• ISBN13: 9781847208231
• ISBN10: 1847208231
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-30
• Publisher: Edward Elgar Pub

Summary

This very valuable book collects together excellent empirical essays on what amounts to a silent majority in advanced industrial societies: low and medium tech manufacturing industries. Such industries employ more people and make a larger contribution to aggregate value creation than their more lauded high tech counterparts - and moreover, they constitute extremely important customer industries for such higher tech producers. They may be neglected, but they are not going away - indeed, this volume shows that they are growing and adapting to the new competitive challenges of globalization. Attending to the dynamics of innovation and change in this large sector is crucial for understanding processes of social and economic restructuring in Europe today. The essays in this volume are the first place to look for insight into this extremely important area of political economic life in Europe

Table of Contents

List of figures
List of tables
Introduction
The low-tech issue	p. 3
Innovation in LMT: Conditions and Requirements
How to grasp innovativeness of organizations: outline of a conceptual tool	p. 25
Standard-setting competition and open innovation in non-HT industries: mechanical engineering and machinery	p. 43
The moral economy of technology indicators	p. 64
Critical comments on the 'moral economy of technology indicators'	p. 85
Technological Diffusion and Interrelationships Between Sectors
Distributed knowledge bases in low- and medium-technology industries	p. 93
LMT innovations in a high-tech environment: human-factor 'tools' for the airline industry	p. 118
Technology fusion and organizational structures in low- and medium-tech companies	p. 140
Industrial innovations in relation to service sectors	p. 160
The relevance of services for high-, medium- and low-tech firms - an empirical analysis in German industry	p. 175
Local Versus Global Perspectives in Innovation
Innovation activities versus competitiveness in low- and medium-technology-based economies: the case of Poland	p. 197
Low-tech industries between traded and untraded interdependencies: a dynamic concept of industrial complementarities	p. 221
High-tech innovation in catching-up countries: conditions and perspectives	p. 245
Worshipping at the shrine of the knowledge-based society?	p. 267
Index	p. 285
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