Towards a Relational Economics: Methodological Comments on Intellectual Property Strategy, Industrial Organisation, and Economics

A core question addressed in this paper is: Can mainstream economic methodology be improved, and if so, how? In the process, it also considers the following questions: Is there much scope for improvement of intellectual property strategy? Is such improvement valuable? Can economics, and in particular the field of industrial organisation, help achieve it? The improvements in economic methodology that are suggested in this paper may be summarized as 'relational economics'. An important aspect of this methodology is an emphasis on inter-organisational relations.