The authors consider the theory and evidence on the propensity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to patent their innovations. Drawing on UK, European and US literature and data sources, they show that small firms are less likely to use patents as a means of protecting their investment...

This paper looks more closely at the sources of patent growth in the United States since 1984. It confirms that the increase is largely due to US patenters, with an earlier surge in Asia, and some increase in Europe. Growth has taken place in all technologies, but not in all industries, being...

In this paper, I briefly review the motivations for inventive behavior and describe two common incentive systems that harness and encourage such behavior. This review of well-trodden ground is performed only so that the implications of the rise of the networked knowledge economy for the...

The literature on industrial districts (also referred to as business clusters) has grown out of recognition that spatial proximity among firms supports the formation and exchange of knowledge within an industry and is therefore a source of competitive advantage. While such a ‘territorial’...

In UK public service broadcasting, recent regulatory change has increased the role of the private sector in television production, culminating in the BBC's recent introduction of 'creative competition' between in-house and independent television producers. Using the concept of 'cognitive...

The clothing industry is regarded as one the most globalised industries of developed economies, yet most studies focus on the geography of production for US firms and pay scant attention to the geography of trade or to other national cases. This paper broadens the perspective to cover the whole...

This paper assesses the degree of financial and economic globalisation of British and German pharmaceutical companies during 1990 and 2001 and explores the changing balance between globalisation and national embeddedness. It tries to explain both the much lower degree of globalisation of German...

This study combines the theories of international business and management with network theory in order to examines the networking activities of foreign affiliates. It focuses on a specific kind of network, which is taking place between firms based in geographic proximity. A comparative analysis...

A number of prominent publishers in the UK and US have become parts of globalized media groups. In Japan, by contrast, they have neither been absorbed into media groups nor become globalized businesses. Based on interviews of major players in the Japanese publishing industry as well as annual...

Prior to the industrial revolution, the predominant form of economic organization in western Europe and north America was the guild. Guilds were network forms, loose associations of independent producers, with strong local and regional identities, in which cooperation and competition were...