An introductory overview of innovation studies

Rossi, Federica (2002): An introductory overview of innovation studies. Unpublished.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a broad overview of the field of innovation studies. We focus on the the economics and sociology of innovation, which we can define as the study of the dynamic processes of generation, development, adoption ad diffusion of innovations in the economic and social system, as well as the characteristics of such processes and their effects on society and the economy. In order to present the many, complex and sometimes overlapping strands of research on innovation, we have chosen a disciplinary criterion. We have therefore identified several different theoretical perspectives on innovation and within each one we have tried to unravel the main issues that are being investigated. However, any attempt to categorise and streamline such a complex topic does, to some exent, introduce arbitrary distinctions in the analysis. In the last section, we explicitly focus on trying to re-estabilish some connections between different perspectives, and we try to uncover some general trends in innovation studies.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: innovation; innovation theories; economics of innovation; sociology of science and technology
• Subjects: B - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B52 - Institutional; Evolutionary; O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Technological Change; Research and Development > O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes; O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Technological Change; Research and Development > O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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