Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes: Results and Challenges ahead

Giovanni Dosi
The new Agenda for Innovation Studies and its Policy Implications
Madrid 13-14 March 2014

Some basic concepts and interpretations

More in

G. Dosi and R.R. Nelson , Technical Change and Industrial

Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

in B.H. Hall and N. Rosenberg: Handbook of the Economics of InnovationVol-I, Burlington: Academic Press, pp. 51-128, 2010

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Knowledge and organizational practices behind input/output relations

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Complementary domains of analysis

Technology as
knowledge
procedures routines artifacts

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Evidence

Diversity of knowledge-bases across production and Innovation Activities Diversity of sources of knowledge . Diversity of procedures by which knowledge is technologically exploited

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

An interpretative framework

The structure of technological knowledge: Technological paradigms Selected physical/chemical principles and knowledge bases Notions of artifacts (e.g. dominant design) Specific heuristics (how do we search?, where do we go from here?, ) Communities of practice

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

An interpretative framework

Technological trajectories Mapping progress in - product characteristics - efficiencies in input use

Relatively coherent paths (e.g. the famous Moores Law)

Discontinuities in knowledge bases and radical innovations generally associated with paradigm changes

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

An interpretative framework

Dimensions of technological paradigms Opportunities of innovation Degrees of tacitness / codification of knowledge Cumulativeness in learning processes

Degrees and forms of appropriability of innovation

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

From the characteristics of knowledge to organizational practices

Dimensions of technological paradigms Organizational routines and organizational knowledge Competencies and capabilities (or what does it mean to say that firm X is good at doing Y...?) The combinatorics amongst elements of organizational competencies, routines and complementary assets Organizational capabilities and the historical and vertical boundaries of the firm

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

All the way to sectoral characteristics

Industry specific regimes (e.g. Schumpeter Mark I and Mark II) Sectoral taxonomies

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Ubiquitous heterogeneity across firms

Technological capabilities Organizational forms Efficiencies Product characteristics

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Industrial evolution

Driven by
idiosyncratic learning entry competitive selection

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Which relative role of these forces?

Which dimensions and which shape of the competitive landscape?

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Diffusion processes

The drivers
[indeed not much progress over the last decade or more A lot to be done ahead ]

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Path-dependency

in diffusion but also elsewhere [ ahead, at which level and when?]

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

The institutional and spatial embeddedness of technological change

National and sectoral systems of innovation

(An emerging) evolutionary geography of innovation

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

More on the challenges ahead

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Technological and organziational innovation

and, relatedly,

Technological vs. organizational discontinuities

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Formalizing a knowledge-procedure-centered theory of production

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

Knowledge, organizational practices and performances

Disentangling the opaque relationship between organizational practices and outcome Replicability within the organization Shielding organization - specific practices

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

The properties of industrial evolutions

From the statistical regularities to the models and back The statistics / microeconometrics of evolutionary processes Some crucial challenges
- the status of replicator dynamics - history friendly models - ABM formalizations

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes

The underlying general ambition:

offering an alternative microfoundation

to macrodynamics

G. Dosi, Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes