This paper explores ongoing debates about the role that codified forms of knowledge play in fostering firms' and countries' innovative performance. It aims to provide an empirical exploration of the use of codified sources of information for innovation at the sectoral level. Despite considerable...

In the context of increasingly globalized markets, ever more complex supply chains and international manufacturing networks, corporate decision-making processes involve more and more actors, variables and criteria. This is a challenge for corporate head quarters. Many have argued that the role...

This study analyzes the processes whereby organizations develop radical innovations in response to environmental transformations. It explores the changes in organizational structures, practices and business strategies entailed by the implementation of such innovations. From the literature on...

This paper examines the knowledge bases of the world's largest pharmaceuticals groups by sales. It puts forward the concepts of knowledge breadth and depth as the relevant dimensions along which knowledge bases can be mapped. Breadth is studied by analysing the evolution of specialisation by...

This paper discusses the issue of modularity from a problem-solving perspective. Modularity is in fact a decomposition heuristic, through which a complex problem is decomposed into independent or quasi-independent sub-problems. By means of a model of problem decomposition, this paper studies the...

This paper builds upon on-going research into the organisational implications of 'modularity'. Advocates of modularity argue that the Invisible Hand of markets is reaching activities previously controlled through the Visible Hand of hierarchies. This paper argues that there are cognitive limits...

This paper brings together data from 14 OECD countries on scientific publications, patents and production specialisation to explore the relationship between economic and production specialisation for 17 manufacturing sectors. Since Marx, there has been a fundamental debate in economics about the...

This paper explores the sources of ideas for innovation in engineering design. The paper shows that engineering designers involved in complex, non-routine design processes rely heavily on face-to-face conversations with other designers for solving problems and developing new innovative ideas....