DIVERSITY, KNOWLEDGE AND COMPLEXITY THEORY: SOME INTRODUCTORY ISSUES

Pierpaolo Andriani ()
Additional contact information
Pierpaolo Andriani: University of Durham Business School, Mill Hill Lane, Durham City DH1 3LB, United Kingdom

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 2001, vol. 05, issue 02, 257-274

Abstract: This paper will discuss some introductory issues related to the role and importance of microdiversity of agents in the context of business networks. Traditional views emphasise the importance of connectivity in the making of industrial clusters, but neglect the crucial role of microdiversity. Microdiversity is important to achieve adaptive behaviour in the presence of environmental uncertainty. Diversity acts as a reservoir of potential strategies against unpredictable environments. Secondly, the formation of business networks is explained in terms of mechanisms generating diversity. Networks emerge as the organisational form in which the diversity of agents can self-organise. This paper suggests that the issue of diversity can be used to discriminate between the model of organisation based on rational allocation of resources — the firm — and the model of organisation based on emergence and self-organisation — the network. The paper concludes that the former is a diversity-reducing mechanism, whereas the latter is a diversity-enhancing mechanism

Keywords: complexity; knowledge; networks; microdiversity; clusters (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1363919601000336
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:wsi:ijimxx:v:05:y:2001:i:02:n:s1363919601000336

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S1363919601000336

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim) is currently edited by Joe Tidd

More articles in International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().