Societal knowledge quality as catalyst for the competitive productivity of technology: One in a set of several universal processes in trajectories of societal progress

Gordon Redding

International Business Review, 2023, vol. 32, issue 6

Abstract: Studies of societal progress have tended to be discipline-based although they inevitably address issues with multiple determinants. Since an explanatory challenge is the great complexity of societal processes, analysis might benefit from a new perspective deliberately designed to foster a multi-disciplinary approach. In response, societal progress is conceived here as being built on a set of acquired competences consistently identified in the literature. These are seen in abstract terms as ‘universals’ required to first build a society's transformative capacity and then deal with the rising complexity. Such universals can be operationalized in distinct ways society by society. Nomothetic universals then interact with ideographic societal specifics to yield conjectures pending refutation. Free-market and State-directed societies are compared as sets of societal processes, here focusing on the role of knowledge to illustrate its central role in progress, and to show how societal processes can be critiqued comparatively for their effectiveness in development.

Keywords: Comparative capitalisms; Societal processes; Development theory; Socio-economics; Complexity theory; Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2022.102096

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