Different sub-disciplines of the social sciences analyse the evolution and diffusion of technical innovations from an institutional perspective. Important contributions are provided by socio-economic studies of national systems of innovation, by politico-economic research on the varieties of...

Modern societies regard knowledge as a production factor in its own right. The market is the prevailing governance mode of their economies, and it is supposed to be the most appropriate mode of trading and allocating knowledge assets, too. But socio-economic research has revealed that knowledge...

The diffusion of the Internet has reinforced expectations that electronic communication media will trigger fundamental changes in society. Some argue that outside the real-world society a cybersociety is evolving which has its own norms of using technology and of dealing with one another. The...