The Innovation Process and Network Activities of Manufacturing Firms

Abstract

Manufacturing firms in Europe have come under increasing pressure in recent years. This pressure arises from three major phenomena and processes that are affecting the entrepreneurial environment: first, the transition from internationalisation to globalisation, accompanied by a process of global concentration in a number of industries, second, the establishment of the Single European Market and the prospects of the Economic and Monetary Union, and third,the opening of the Iron Curtain and increasing competition from the newly developing market economies in Eastern Europe. Firms may react in different ways to meet these challenges, but there is wide agreement that new technologies, along with novel forms of work organisation and management, will play a crucial role in enabling firms to respond successfully to rapidly changing market conditions and remain competitive in an increasingly European or even global economic environment.