Author : John M. Ziman
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 22,61 MB
Release : 2003-09-18
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780521542173
Ground-breaking yet non-technical analysis of the analogy that technological artefacts 'evolve' like biological organisms.
Author : Arthur O. Eger
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 42,13 MB
Release : 2018-02-15
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1316947300
In this new work, Arthur O. Eger and Huub Ehlhardt present a 'Theory of Product Evolution'. They challenge the popular notion that we owe the availability of products solely to genius inventors. Instead, they present arguments that show that a process of variation, selection, and accumulation of 'know-how' (to make) and 'know-what' (function to realize) provide an explanation for the emergence of new types of products and their subsequent development into families of advanced versions. This theory employs a product evolution diagram as an analytical framework to reconstruct the development history of a product family and picture it as a graphical narrative. The authors describe the relevant literature and case studies to place their theory in context. The 'Product Phases Theory' is used to create predictions on the most likely next step in the evolution of a product, offering practical tools for those involved in new product development.
Author : David B. Audretsch
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 29,83 MB
Release : 1995
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780262011464
It once took two decades to replace one-third of the Fortune 500; now a subset of new firms are challenging and displacing this elite group at a breathtaking rate, while armies of startups come and go within just a few years. Most new jobs are, in fact, coming from small firms, reversing the trend of a century. David Audretsch takes a close look at the U.S. economy in motion, providing a detailed and systematic investigation of the dynamic process by which industries and firms enter into markets, either grow and survive, or disappear. He shapes a clear understanding of the role that small, entrepreneurial firms play in this evolutionary process and in the asymmetric size distribution of firms in the typical industry.Audretsch introduces the large longitudinal database maintained by the U.S. Small Business Administration that is used to identify the startup of new firms and track their performance over time. He then provides different snapshots of the process of industries in motion: why new-firm startup activity varies so greatly across industries; what happens to these firms after they enter the market; the extent to which entrepreneurial firms account for an industry's economic activity and why that measure varies across industries; how small firms compensate for size-related disadvantages; and who exits and why.Audretsch concludes that the structure of industries is characterized by a high degree of fluidity and turbulence, even as the patterns of evolution vary considerably from industry to industry. The dynamic process by which firms and industries evolve over time is shaped by three fundamental factors: technology, scale economies, and demand. Most important, the evidence suggests that it is the differences in the knowledge conditions and technology underlying each specific industry -- key elements in innovation -- that are responsible for the pattern particular to that industry.
Author : George Basalla
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 44,54 MB
Release : 1989-02-24
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 1316101584
This book presents an evolutionary theory of technological change based upon recent scholarship in the history of technology and upon relevant material drawn from economic history and anthropology. It challenges the popular notion that technology advances by the efforts of a few heroic individuals who produce a series of revolutionary inventions owing little or nothing to the technological past. Therefore, the book's argument is shaped by analogies taken selectively from the theory of organic evolution, and not from the theory and practice of political revolution. Three themes appear, and reappear with variations, throughout the study. The first is diversity: an acknowledgment of the vast numbers of different kinds of made things (artifacts) that have long been available to humanity; the second is necessity: the belief that humans are driven to invent new artifacts in order to meet basic biological requirements such as food, shelter, and defense; and the third is technological evolution: an organic analogy that explains both the emergence of novel artifacts and their subsequent selection by society for incorporation into its material life without invoking either biological necessity or technological progress. Although the book is not intended to provide a strict chronological account of the development of technology, historical examples - including many of the major achievements of Western technology: the waterwheel, the printing press, the steam engine, automobiles and trucks, and the transistor - are used extensively to support its theoretical framework. The Evolution of Techology will be of interest to all readers seeking to learn how and why technology changes, including both students and specialists in the history of technology and science.
Author : Franco Malerba
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 45,49 MB
Release : 2016-08-11
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1107051703
A new approach to the analysis of technological process, emphasising the tailoring of formal modelling to historical context.
Author : Richard R. Nelson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 32,31 MB
Release : 2018-05-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1108660789
Evolutionary economics sees the economy as always in motion with change being driven largely by continuing innovation. This approach to economics, heavily influenced by the work of Joseph Schumpeter, saw a revival as an alternative way of thinking about economic advancement as a result of Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter's seminal book, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, first published in 1982. In this long-awaited follow-up, Nelson is joined by leading figures in the field of evolutionary economics, reviewing in detail how this perspective has been manifest in various areas of economic inquiry where evolutionary economists have been active. Providing the perfect overview for interested economists and social scientists, readers will learn how in each of the diverse fields featured, evolutionary economics has enabled an improved understanding of how and why economic progress occurs.
Author : Richard R. Nelson
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 33,86 MB
Release : 1985-10-15
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780674041431
This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.
Author : Andreas Pyka
Publisher : Springer
Page : 637 pages
File Size : 39,68 MB
Release : 2015-03-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 3319132997
This book is at the cutting edge of the ongoing ‘neo-Schumpeterian’ research program that investigates how economic growth and its fluctuation can be understood as the outcome of a historical process of economic evolution. Much of modern evolutionary economics has relied upon biological analogy, especially about natural selection. Although this is valid and useful, evolutionary economists have, increasingly, begun to build their analytical representations of economic evolution on understandings derived from complex systems science. In this book, the fact that economic systems are, necessarily, complex adaptive systems is explored, both theoretically and empirically, in a range of contexts. Throughout, there is a primary focus upon the interconnected processes of innovation and entrepreneurship, which are the ultimate sources of all economic growth. Twenty two chapters are provided by renowned experts in the related fields of evolutionary economics and the economics of innovation.
Author : Pieter E. Vermaas
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 349 pages
File Size : 43,79 MB
Release : 2007-12-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1402065914
This volume provides the reader with an integrated overview of state-of-the-art research in philosophy and ethics of design in engineering and architecture. It contains twenty-five essays that focus on engineering designing in its traditional sense, on designing in novel engineering domains, and on architectural and environmental designing. This volume enables the reader to overcome the traditional separation between engineering designing and architectural designing.
Author : W. Brian Arthur
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 47,74 MB
Release : 2010
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0141031638
The Nature of Technology will change the way you think about this fundamental subject forever. W. Brian Arthur's many years of thinking and writing about technology have culminated in a unique understanding of his subject. Here he examines the nature of technology itself: what is it and how does it evolve? Giving rare insights into the evolution of specific technologies and a new framework for thinking about others, every sentence points to some further truth and fascination. At a time when we are ever more reliant on technological solutions for the world's problems, it is extraordinary how little we actually understand the processes that lead to innovation and invention. Until now. This will be a landmark book that will define its subject, and inspire people to think about technology in depth for the very first time.
