The Economics of Knowledge Coordination
Innovation Platforms as Emerging Organizational Structures in Complex Systems
Routledge Studies in Global Competition Series

The main purpose of this book is to provide a new framework to understand the question of how economic agents and their organizations acquire and coordinate innovative capabilities and new knowledge. Its particular focus is on the dynamics of knowledge production and organization at the firm level.

The volume builds upon theoretical contributions that analyse technological knowledge as a collective good and innovation as being the result of the exploitation of technological complementarities among a variety of actors, and integrates these with insights from complexity theory. The book argues that both networks of innovators, based on interactions and cooperation, and the markets for knowledge and technology, based on transactions, are coordinated by quite visible hands more similar to the Chandlerian vertical hierarchy rather than by the traditionally perceived spontaneous and anonymous coordination of markets. The book provides a theoretical discussion of these issues as well as detailed empirical evidence from a variety of industries.

PART I: Overview 1. Innovation platforms, complexity and knowledge intensive firm Part II: The Conceptual Framework 2 The economics of knowledge: knowledge as a public, private and collective good. 3 The shifting boundaries of the organization of innovation: hierarchies, markets and networks. 4 Hierarchies in the markets for knowledge: the building blocks of innovation platforms. 5 Innovation platforms as governance structures for complex innovation systems PART III: Empirical Applications 6 Organizational changes and long term evolution of innovation systems: Emerging innovation platforms in the car industry. 7 Complex innovation and systemic reorganization of production: The case of electric vehicles. 8 Technological convergence, demand externalities and bundling of services: Innovation platforms in the ICTs industry. 9 Conclusive remarks and implications.