The Emergence of the Quasi-Markets for Knowledge

Abstract

In the first chapter, we wished to put the strength on the specific character of knowledge markets. The term quasi-markets expresses the idea that they are not pure markets by which firms could put at work 'fully explicit blueprints by purchasing homogeneous inputs on anonymous markets' (Nelson and Winter, p.119). Rather, firms seek to acquire specific instrumental knowledge resting on a specialized expertise, allowing them to increase the efficiency of their daily operations and of their innovation behavior. These markets are far from being a recent phenomenon: Arora, Fosfuri and Gambardella (1999) make reference to the research of Lamoreaux and Sokoloff acknowledging an active technological knowledge market in the USA at the end of the 19thand 20thcentury. The glass industry, according to these authors, did already experiment at that time a 'division of innovative labor' between invention activity and its marketing, on the basis of a specific organizational and geographic differentiation.