Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Sectoral systems: concepts and issues
- Part II Six sectoral systems
- Part III Sectoral systems and national systems; international performance and public policy
- 9 National institutional frameworks, institutional complementarities and sectoral systems of innovation
- 10 Sectoral systems of innovation and varieties of capitalism: explaining the development of high-technology entrepreneurship in Europe
- 11 The international performance of European sectoral systems
- 12 Sectoral systems: implications for European innovation policy
- Part IV Conclusions
- Index
- References
10 - Sectoral systems of innovation and varieties of capitalism: explaining the development of high-technology entrepreneurship in Europe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Sectoral systems: concepts and issues
- Part II Six sectoral systems
- Part III Sectoral systems and national systems; international performance and public policy
- 9 National institutional frameworks, institutional complementarities and sectoral systems of innovation
- 10 Sectoral systems of innovation and varieties of capitalism: explaining the development of high-technology entrepreneurship in Europe
- 11 The international performance of European sectoral systems
- 12 Sectoral systems: implications for European innovation policy
- Part IV Conclusions
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The national institutional framework of the United States' economy has proven favorable to the expansion of high-technology industries. Since the early 1980s the US economy has evolved to support a dramatic expansion in biotechnology, software, and a variety of other fast-moving high-tech activities with close links to basic science. In particular, the institutional framework of the United States has evolved to provide ever more venture capital to high-risk start-up companies, to develop new links between university scientists and companies, and to encourage – or, at least, not hinder – the reorganization of large companies for exploiting commercial opportunities in high technology. In Western Europe firms and policy makers are anxiously experimenting with their own institutional structures in an attempt to support science-based high-tech innovation in their own country better.
This chapter explores the influence of national institutional frameworks on the evolution (using the sectoral systems of innovation approach) of high-tech industries in Europe, focusing in particular on recent public policy and private sector initiatives to foster larger numbers of entrepreneurial technology start-up firms. Our analysis draws on extensive field research within biotechnology and software – two of the most important sectoral systems' new technologies, in which the creation of entrepreneurial start-ups is widespread. The study elaborates and then applies arguments associated with two conceptual approaches: the SSI framework, developed within this book to examine innovative dynamics within particular industries; and the “varieties of capitalism” approach (Hall and Soskice, 2001), which has explored the influence of national institutional frameworks on patterns of industrial organization within particular countries.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sectoral Systems of InnovationConcepts, Issues and Analyses of Six Major Sectors in Europe, pp. 348 - 387Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
References
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