Smaller and medium sized firms (SMEs) are recognised to be at a disadvantage in innovation since they lack their own R & D base and have few means of access to R & D and innovative technological developments created elsewhere. In this article the author describes the system being developed in...

Is it more or less profitable to diversify? Jacques Liouville made a survey of companies in the German mechanical engineering sector and finds it leads to two interesting lessons. First, unrelated diversification is not to be recommended; second, external growth is preferable to internal if...

Since about 1960, the industrialised countries have intervened to encourage the development of the technologies having a high growth potential. The governments of OECD countries in particular have admitted that the pursuit of economic growth and the creation of new jobs depend upon the...