The story of flight

John Kay

International Review of Applied Economics, 2024, vol. 38, issue 1-2, 90-103

Abstract: The history of commercial aviation - from the earliest attempts at flight to the modern civil aircraft - is used to illustrate the central role of the evolutionary progress of collective knowledge in what is loosely described as technical progress. No individual knows how to build an airbus - ten thousand people working together do. The emphasis on collective intelligence as a means of solving problems builds on Penrose’s insight that the firm is best viewed a s a collection of capabilities to develop a template for the modern corporation that recognises the development of ‘capital as a service’ and the importance of ‘hollow corporations’, franchises and platforms in the twenty-first century economy.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/02692171.2023.2242016

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