The paper analyses whether the economics of the firm is, or can be, historically relevant. In order to answer this question, we re-examine the famous historical case of vertical integration Fisher Body-General Motors. The archive related to this famous case being now accessible, we consider that...

The paper proposes an original survey on the evolution of the concept of technological knowledge and of its produc tion, as well as of its operational translations in the empirical literature. We move from the former notion of knowledge capital stock, implying a linear approach to the process of...

The theme of industry life cycle (ILC) is today one of the central fields of research in industrial dynamics. ILC shows that industries behave like biological organisms, and proceed through different phases of development, from emergence to decline. Although this approach constitutes one of the...

The paper develops an evolutionary framework to investigate and compare the dynamics of knowledge base across three knowledge intensive sectors, i.e. biotechnology, telecommunications and electronics. Knowledge is understood as collective good featured by a co-relational and a...

This paper applies the methodological tools typical of social network analysis within an evolutionary framework, to investigate the dynamics of the knowledge base of the biotechnology sector. Knowledge is here considered a collective good represented as a co-relational and a...

Corporate governance has been in the recent years one of the most debated issues in conventional economic approaches. Agency theory combined with financial indicators has particularly contributed to the development of shareholder value as a key concept in companies' governance both at a...