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A failure trichotomy in knowledge exploration and exploitation

Author Info

  • Gustafsson, Robin
  • Autio, Erkko

Abstract

In this article, we review current rationales for policy intervention in innovative activities. Focusing particularly on market and system failure rationales, we disentangle related underlying mechanisms for knowledge exploration and exploitation. We provide a novel contribution to the system failure literature by distinguishing between system-level inertia and inhibited emergence. Our conceptualization of inhibited emergence draws on literatures related to neo-institutional sociology, the social construction of technology, and on organizational cognition and learning literatures, and it presents elemental socio-cognitive mechanisms that influence and direct knowledge exploration and exploitation in innovation systems. We compare related, yet theoretically distinct concepts of market failure, system-level inertia, and inhibited emergence, and show how each addresses distinct coordinative mechanisms and field-level dynamics and related socio-cognitive processes.

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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Research Policy.

Volume (Year): 40 (2011)
Issue (Month): 6 (July)
Pages: 819-831

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Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:40:y:2011:i:6:p:819-831
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol

Keywords: Market failure Systems failure System-level inertia Inhibited emergence Socio-cognitive failure Social construction of technology;

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Cited by:

  1. Enrico Santarelli & Hien Tran, 2013. "The interplay of human and social capital in shaping entrepreneurial performance: the case of Vietnam," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 435-458, February.
  2. Ács, Zoltán J. & Autio, Erkko & Szerb, László, 2014. "National Systems of Entrepreneurship: Measurement issues and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 476-494.

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