Innovation in Low-Tech Firms and Industries

Edited by Hartmut Hirsch-Kreinsen, Professor of Economic and Industrial Sociology, TU Dortmund University, Germany and David Jacobson, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Dublin City University Business School, Ireland

• Contents:INTRODUCTION1. The Low-Tech IssueHartmut Hirsch-Kreinsen, Katrin Hahn and David JacobsonPART I: INNOVATION IN LMT: CONDITIONS AND REQUIREMENTS2. How to Grasp Innovativeness of Organizations: Outline of a Conceptual ToolGerd Bender3. Standard-setting Competition and Open Innovation in Non-HT Industries: Mechanical Engineering and MachineryAlexander Gerybadze and André Slowak4. The Moral Economy of Technology IndicatorsBenoît Godin5. Critical Comments on the ‘Moral Economy of Technology Indicators’Hariolf GruppPART II: TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFUSION AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SECTORS 6. Distributed Knowledge Bases in Low- and Medium-Technology IndustriesPaul L. Robertson and Keith Smith 7. LMT Innovations in a High-tech Environment: Human-factor ‘Tools’ for the Airline IndustryDavid Jacobson and Bernard Musyck8. Technology Fusion and Organizational Structures in Low- and Medium-tech CompaniesDaniela Freddi9. Industrial Innovations in Relation to Service SectorsMarja Toivonen10. The Relevance of Services for High-, Medium- and Low-tech Firms – An Empirical Analysis in German IndustryEva Kirner, Gunter Lay and Steffen KinkelPART III: LOCAL VERSUS GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES IN INNOVATION11. Innovation Activities versus Competitiveness in Low- and Medium-Technology-based Economies: The Case of PolandAnna Wziatek-Kubiak12. Low-tech Industries between Traded and Untraded Interdependencies: A Dynamic Concept of Industrial Complementarities Martin Heidenreich13. High-tech Innovations in Catching-up Countries: Conditions and PerspectivesStaffan Laestadius, Linda Gustavsson and Vicky Long14. Worshipping at the Shrine of the Knowledge-based Society?James WickhamIndex

'This very valuable book collects together excellent empirical essays on what amounts to a silent majority in advanced industrial societies: low and medium tech manufacturing industries. Such industries employ more people and make a larger contribution to aggregate value creation than their more lauded high-tech counterparts - and moreover, they constitute extremely important customer industries for such higher tech producers. They may be neglected, but they are not going away - indeed, this volume shows that they are growing and adapting to the new competitive challenges of globalization. Attending to the dynamics of innovation and change in this large sector is crucial for understanding processes of social and economic restructuring in Europe today. The essays in this volume are the first place to look for insight into this extremely important area of political economic life in Europe.'