The diversity of social systems of innovation and production during the 1990s

Abstract

interactions between actors (firms, researchers, universities, laboratories, etc.) and their environment. Moreover, it is wrong to think that such environments are comprised of nothing more than market price(s), albeit contingent. In reality, they consist of a whole set of rules, forms of organisation, and institutions. The differences in “technological styles” that can be observed at the territorial level (usually a national territory, although this can sometimes cover a region or any wider grouping of countries), or even at the sectorial level, stem from the differences in the institutional configurations that are specific to each of these territories. The expression “technological style” is intentionally vague, given the diversity of the characteristic features of the technical change that is being associated with these institutional particularities: rate of technical change; type of innovation (i.e., radical or incremental); a sectorial specialisation that varies as a function of the level of technological intensity or even the long-term growth rate. This being the case, which types of institutions should be integrated into innovation systems studies ? IS research derives from the economics of technical change, and a large proportion of the work that has been carried out in this field has therefore concentrated on institutions that are directly involved in scientific or in technical activities. 3 This includes scientific systems, research laboratories, scientific institutions of technology, and possibly universities and institutes of higher education – as well as the relationships that such institutions entertain with the corporate sector. However, this minimalist conception of IS is not the only possibility. Other approaches will include a wider range of institutions in their framework,