INNOVATION PLATFORMS, COMPLEXITY AND THE KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE FIRM

This chapter traces the main characteristics of the shift in the organization of innovative and knowledge-intensive activities from the vertically integrated R&D model to the distributed and networked model. In particular, it integrates the contributions of the economics of innovation about the importance of knowledge sourced externally as an input in the knowledge production of the firm, with recent insights provided by complexity theory about the importance of changing pattern of interactions among organizations. It highlights the characteristics and virtues of “innovation platform” (Consoli and Patrucco, 2008 and 2010; Gawer, 2009) as a model for the governance of innovation upon which scholarly research is placing a growing interest because it combines some of the advantages of managerial control with the benefits of distributed resources and collective action typical of the network.