Learning and Innovation in Organizations and Economies

Bart Nooteboom studied mathematics and econometrics. He worked in industry, was appointed Professor of Industrial Organization at Groningen University in 1987, and is now Professor of Organization at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He has published widely in the areas of entrepreneurship and small business; industry and technology policy; innovation and diffusion; transaction costs; trust; inter-firm relations; organizational learning; and philosophy of economics and management.

• 1. Purpose and Scope ; PART I: BUILDING-BLOCKS ; 2. Management and Organization ; 3. Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Competence ; 4. Evolution ; 5. Institutions ; 6. Knowledge ; 7. Language ; PART II: CONSTRUCTION ; 8. A Theory of Interactive Learning ; 9. A Heuristic of Discovery ; 10. An Elaboration with Scripts ; 11. Integration and Disintegration ; PART III: APPLICATION ; 12. Innovation Systems ; 13. Organizational Learning ; 14. Conclusions and Further Research ; 15. Summary

In his inspiring and thoughtful book Learning and Innovation in Organisations and Economies, Bart Nooteboom looks at innovation the other way round: He tries to find common logic behind the processes of exploration, of searching for radical innovations and drawing on the economic and technical possibilities that these innovations open up. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is concerned with the fundamental mechanisms driving innovative processes.