Managing and Organizing the Bioeconomy

The bioeconomy is a rather recent phenomenon in the globalized economy. Even though agriculture and cattle breeding have been human endeavours for centuries, it is not until the emergence of modern science that human beings more effectively could intervene in nature. Shaping and forming nature on the cellular or molecular level is perhaps the single most promising scenario for mankind, struggling, for the time being, to cope with severe and highly worrying climate changes and a steady growth of the global population, leading, for example, to what may easily become an endemic shortage of freshwater. However, being at the forefront of the technosciences, this venturing into the inner matter of life as such is not a trivial matter; rather it represents the most advanced and sophisticated procedure invented by humans, accompanied by a series of concerns regarding the nature of humanity and the potential effects from actively forming life and nature. Recently, stretching back to the 1970s and the inception of the first biotechnology companies, this venturing into life and nature has become an economic issue, an issue of governance, regulations and management. Organizing these activities demands significant resources, both in terms of financial and human capital. In this book, some of the implications from the bioeconomy have been addressed, in theoretical and empirical terms. As has been suggested, the bioeconomy is still in its infancy, gradually stabilizing a set of procedures, routines and institutions enabling its further growth.