Preface and acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction: innovation beyond national systems fragility: institutional bricolage for SMEs growth / D. Lauto G. Pittino and F. Visintin -- Part I the context -- 2. Entrepreneurship and technological clusters. the influence of contextual factors on the birth...

The current trend towards globalization is posing a substantial challenge to SME clusters to restructure and reach out to distant markets and knowledge sources, while at the same time exploiting the advantages of local factors and agglomeration. This book represents a first attempt to analyze...

From Industrial Districts to Local Development introduces a set of papers representing the main contribution of the 'Florence school' to the recent literature on industrial districts. The authors illustrate that the revitalisation of the concept of industrial districts, returning to Alfred...

This highly original book represents a major advance in the use of patents to compare countries' technological competitiveness. It tabulates and analyses 280,000 United States patents from countries across the world over a ten year period. Specifically, these patents were granted to...

The contributors to this volume explore the emerging patterns of SME growth and international expansion in response to the evolving competitive environment, dynamics of competitive behavior, entrepreneurial processes and formulation of strategy

1. Financial reform in Australia -- 2. Price stabilization, the banking crisis and financial reform in Brazil -- 3. Financial reform in Canada : past, present and future -- 4. Financial system reform in China -- 5. Financial reform in Germany -- 6. Financial reform in Hong Kong -- 7. Financial...

Warren Samuels's second and concluding selection of essays focuses on early 20th century economists who, while relatively well-known in their times, have tended to be obscured by the more prominent stars of the discipline. It illustrates that economics is more diverse and complex than...

Due to financial market imperfections it is imperative to analyse the relationship between financial structure and the monetary policy transmission process in Europe to effectively design and implement European monetary policy. Focusing on the years 1980-1995 and providing empirical evidence for...

This study focuses in detail on the environmental compliance/competitiveness relationship with respect to the regulation of packaging waste. An important and innovative feature of the study is its emphasis on backward and forward linkages. An entire supply chain is considered: packaging...

The economic demands of an ageing population, coupled with the crisis of public spending pose one of the greatest challenges to social policy in both the East and West. This book focuses on the political economy of pensions, particularly on the interaction between private and state provision....