National Innovation Systems—Analytical Concept and Development Tool

Bengt-Åke Lundvall

Industry and Innovation, 2007, vol. 14, issue 1, 95-119

Abstract: The term national system of innovation has been around for more than 20 years and today it has become widely spread among policy makers as well as among scholars all over the world. This paper takes stock and looks ahead from a somewhat personal point of view. It also gives some insight into how and why the concept came about. The paper argues that a key to progress is to get a better understanding of knowledge and learning as the basis for innovation and to understand how different modes of innovation complement each other and find support in the specific national context. A core of the innovation system is defined and it is illustrated that it is necessary both to understand micro-behaviour in the core and understand “the wider setting” within which the core operates. Concepts used in organization theory referring to fit and misfit may be used to enrich the understanding of the performance of innovation systems. At the end of the paper I discuss some further developments needed to make the concept relevant and applicable to developing countries. Here special attention is given to institutions and capabilities supporting learning. I point to the need to give more emphasis to the distribution of power, to institution building and to the openness of innovation systems.

Keywords: Innovation system; economic theory; public policy; economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (249)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13662710601130863 (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:14:y:2007:i:1:p:95-119

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

DOI: 10.1080/13662710601130863

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 ().