Collaborative Public Space in a National Innovation System: A Case Study of the Israeli Military's Impact on the Software Industry

Dan Breznitz

Industry and Innovation, 2005, vol. 12, issue 1, 31-64

Abstract: Both systems of innovation and cluster theories emphasize the importance of institutions that facilitate learning and information diffusion as well as community building for the continuous success of industrial systems. Nevertheless, they fail to combine their insights into a general system-level understanding. In order to fill this gap the concept of collaborative public space (CPS) is defined. It is then used to analyze the Israeli military's role within the Israeli IT industry, employing the case study method to analyze a specific section of the military—MAMRAM—the main programming, software engineering, and computer users training unit. The paper's main findings are that, contrary to the commonly argued view, which sees the military mainly as a supplier of factors of production such as high skilled labor, or technological spin-offs, the military has been playing a critical role in the continuing success of the high-tech industry by providing it with a CPS. The military acts as an important center of information gathering, processing, and dissemination for the Israeli software innovation system, as the originator and strengthener of many social networks, and as the connecting node between various weakly tied social networks.

Keywords: Technology transfer; systems of innovation; collective learning; technological upgrading; industrial clusters; state-industry interactions; social networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1366271042000339058 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:indinn:v:12:y:2005:i:1:p:31-64

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CIAI20

DOI: 10.1080/1366271042000339058

Access Statistics for this article

Industry and Innovation is currently edited by Associate Professor Mark Lorenzen

More articles in Industry and Innovation from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().