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Bengt-Åke Lundvall

Bengt-Åke Lundvall

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Publications

Publications (185)
Article
In this think-piece, I reflect on what lessons innovation scholars and innovation policymakers in the developing world can draw from the COVID-19 crisis. While it has confirmed the fundamental importance of science and technology in coping with a major global challenge, it has also shown its limitations and the importance of institutions and organi...
Article
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La forte croissance et les performances d'exportation en Afrique durant la dernière décennie ont été largement due à la hausse des prix internationaux des matières premières mais ne se sont pas traduites, toute-fois, par un développement manufacturier et la création d'emplois massivement. Comment expliquer que les secteurs des ressources naturelles...
Article
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This paper criticizes attempts to present narrow perspectives on innovation policy as reflecting the use of the concept innovation system. While it is correct that innovation policy, at least until recently, has given higher priority to economic growth than to global challenges such as climate change and income inequality this is in no way immanent...
Chapter
In this chapter, we introduce and further develop the intellectual monopoly concept and argue that US and Chinese tech giants are paradigmatic examples. We distinguish different degrees of intellectual monopoly and identify data-driven intellectual monopolies as belonging to the highest degree. They have monopolized a new method of invention: the a...
Chapter
This book conceptualizes the global innovation race between nation states and corporations in the second phase of a technological revolution characterized by Artificial Intelligence and explosive growth in digital services. Each chapter elaborates on an existing or new conceptual framing to analyse empirical dimensions of the economics and politics...
Chapter
This chapter focuses on the role of the state and its interaction with tech giants in the US–China race for AI global dominance. In the previous chapter, we elaborated on the role of the Chinese state in China’s AI catching-up. In response, the US government has combined measures to promote AI with technology embargos with the aim to protect its AI...
Chapter
This chapter explores China’s catching-up in artificial intelligence (AI) with high-income countries. It is inspired by Christopher Freeman’s work on, how radical technical change opens up for shifts in world leadership. Focusing on artificial intelligence as a core technology of the second phase of the Information and Communication Technology revo...
Chapter
In this final chapter, we introduce alternative scenarios concerning tech giants, the US and Chinese states, data governance and innovation under the current governance regime. On this basis, we advance policy recommendations and calls for activism aiming at a less polarized future where technology is guided towards collectively solving societal, e...
Chapter
In Chapter 4, we analysed artificial intelligence (AI) as a technological innovation system (TIS) dominated by the tech giants. This chapter gives insights into the emergence and dynamics of this system. We explore the technological convergence between two tech giants with quite distinct origins using lexical analyses of these companies’ patents an...
Chapter
In this chapter, we conceptualize artificial intelligence as a technological innovation system (TIS) and use data on tech giants’ publications to analyse their crucial role in developing and shaping the system. A unique characteristic of the AI system is the integrative role of cloud computing, a set of digital services completely dominated by a ha...
Chapter
In this chapter, we show that tech giants organize what we define as corporate innovation systems from which they appropriate knowledge that they transform into intangible assets garnering intellectual rents. We define corporate innovation systems as systems that are organized and controlled by an intellectual monopoly and include a multitude of mo...
Article
Inspired by Christopher Freeman's work on how radical technical change opens up for shifts in world leadership and on the role of innovation systems in this process, this paper explores China's emergence as a lead country in artificial intelligence as reflecting a co-evolution of Corporate and National Innovation Systems. Taking Freeman's (1987) wo...
Book
This book develops new theoretical perspectives on the economics and politics of innovation and knowledge in order to capture new trends in modern capitalism. It shows how giant corporations establish themselves as intellectual monopolies and how each of them builds and controls its own corporate innovation system. It presents an analysis of a new...
Article
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This paper focuses on tech giants as active drivers of a phase of globalisation characterized by growth in digital services trade combined with a general shift to intangible assets. By analysing how Google, Amazon and Microsoft organize their innovation activities, we show that they continuously monopolize knowledge while outsourcing innovation ste...
Chapter
Der Beitrag wendet sich gegen die neoklassische Perspektive, wonach vor allem die Ressourcenallokation das entscheidende Problem in der Diskussion wirtschaftlicher Prozesse darstellt. Er betont erstens den kausalen Gehalt mittelfristiger Innovationsprozesse und zweitens die Bedeutung einer global diversifizierten und ausdifferenzierten Wissensbasis...
Chapter
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Contemporary socialism should be discussed in relation to two major challenges, the Globalizing learning economy and the Anthropocene age. First, globalization has undermined the autonomy of national systems of innovation at the same time as knowledge and learning have become the most important sources of local and global wealth. Second, in the age...
Chapter
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Scientific advance and innovation are major sources of economic growth and are crucial for making development socially and environmentally sustainable. A critical question is: Will private enterprises invest sufficiently in research technological development and innovation and, if not, to what degree and how should governments engage in the support...
Article
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the hypothesis that increased participation in global value chains (GVCs), such as assembly of imported parts for exports, leads to higher economic growth. The focus is particularly on the extent to which this holds for low-income countries, and the role that capability-building, i.e. development of the natio...
Article
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This paper contributes to ongoing work which seeks to bring together the national innovation system and global value chain literatures for the study of economic development. We depart from the view that such a new combination will be helpful both in enhancing understanding of socioeconomic processes in developing countries and in building a more us...
Research
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Natural resource industries and economies are often innovative, technologically advanced, and can under the right circumstances lead to economic development. Contrary to traditional thinking, natural resources do not make countries poor, but weak innovation systems do. Linkages which enable learning and innovation within natural resource industries...
Article
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In their 2006 article on innovation in China in this journal, Gu and Lundvall pointed to some weaknesses and challenges for China’s growth and they also outlined ideas for policy action to overcome those. In this short note, written in collaboration with Sylvia Schwag Serger, they go back and assess China's social and economic development in the 10...
Article
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Was the 2007 - 8 financial and economic crisis brought about by the exhaustion of the current techno - economic paradigm, and will a new paradigm will lead to eventual recovery? Lundvall and Steinmueller respond to Arch ibugi’s Blade Runner economics . Lundvall argues that whilst it is useful to think in terms of techno - economic paradigms to unde...
Article
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Daniele Archibugi asks whether the 2007–8 financial and economic crisis was brought about by the exhaustion of the current techno-economic paradigm, and whether a new paradigm will lead to eventual recovery. My answer to both questions is ‘No’. Whilst it is useful to think in terms of techno-economic paradigms to understand the uneven process of te...
Article
Observers around the world are impressed by the rapid growth of China’s economy. While outside observers tend to focus on the success story of unprecedented growth policy documents and recent domestic debates in China have pointed to the need for a shift in the growth trajectory with stronger emphasis on ‘endogenous innovation’ and ‘harmonious deve...
Data
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This article has been inspired by a reflexion we had at the Globelics Network on how to transform mineral rents into industrial and knowledge assets. This transformation which seems to have worked very well for Northern countries , particualrly in Scandinavia (Norway and Finland as an exemple) does not seem to work easily for mineral based economi...
Article
The globalising learning economy driven by more intense competition and the wide use of information and communication technologies is characterised by rapid change in technologies and markets. At the level of labour markets and within enterprises, this is reflected in continuous change in skill requirements for employees. This is true for all parts...
Article
While supportive to the basic idea that governments need to take on a more active role in influencing the direction of investments and technological change I raise some questions to the paper by Lucchese et al. (Economia e Polictica Industriale-J Ind Bus Econ, in this issue, 2016). Should there be strong emphasis on promoting manufacturing? Is the...
Article
This article uses a multi-level framework to investigate for 17 European nations the links between forms of work organisation and style of employee learning at the workplace on the one hand, and the characteristics of national educational and training systems on the other. The analysis shows that forms of work organisation characterised by relative...
Article
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Abstract: The strong growth and export performance in Africa for the last decade were largely due to higher international commodity prices and did not translate into the broad-based economic and social development needed to reduce poverty and create jobs for the underemployed. In this paper we assume that this pattern of development can be explaine...
Chapter
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Recent press reports suggest that Africa may now be at a turning point in terms of economic growth and development. These reports point out that, although starting from a low base, Africa is now the world’s fastest-growing continent (August, 2013). However, naive optimism on this ground should be avoided (Karuri-Sebina et al., 2012). The recent gro...
Book
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In this Globelics Thematic Review, the author team presents and discusses recent research on the relationships between natural resources, innovation and development, and suggests some implications of this body of knowledge for policy makers. The Review sets out to explore three interlinked questions with a particular focus on innovation and industr...
Article
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This paper discusses opportunities and policy options for African countries seeking innovation and learning based development strategies. What kind of policies and institutions are necessary in order to transform the current increase in rents from commodities exports into industrial investment and upgrading of agriculture and agro-industrial develo...
Book
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In this Thematic Review we communicate relevant insights from the Globelics research community to policy circles and development donor organisations. The key issues addressed are, firstly, how the notion of LICS can help us understand the challenges of low carbon development (LCD), and secondly, a discussion of the design of support structures for...
Chapter
This chapter analyses changes in employment, the quality of work and jobs, and social cohesion over the period of the Lisbon strategy. The chapter begins by presenting a mapping of how Europe’s economies work and learn, and illustrates how income equality and inequality in access to learning were linked to differences in the competitiveness of the...
Article
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Although Denmark shares with the other four Nordic countries certain attributes, such as pragmatic protestant religion, small and homogenous population, strong social democratic parties and ambitious welfare states, it also has its own characteristics. High degree of specialization in the so-called low-tech sectors, combined with high mobility and...
Chapter
L’évolution du système d’innovation chinois constitue l’un des objectifs affichés du gouvernement chinois. Elle s’inscrit dans une vague importante de réforme et de transformation institutionnelle qui conduit à une reconfiguration du système de recherche et d’innovation. Celui-ci aboutit à des taux de croissance impressionnants en termes d’efforts...
Chapter
The idea that knowledge matters for the economy is far from new. Adam Smith (1776) refers to the division of labor among specialized ‘men of speculation’ as an important source of innovation. Friedrich List (1841) argues that the most important form of capital is ‘mental capital’. Karl Marx (1868) pointed to science as an important productive force...
Chapter
In the current era, where global competition increases the need to constantly develop and renew skills and competences, governments play an important role, both in terms of direct social investment in the upgrading of skills and in designing institutions so that they underpin individual and organisational learning. This chapter shows that there are...
Chapter
This chapter compares the Europe 2020 strategy with the Lisbon strategy from 2000. It shows how the intentions behind the Lisbon strategy to promote knowledge-based economic growth with more social cohesion were given after only five years and how the Open Method of Coordination was too soft for implementing the intentions behind the strategy. The...
Chapter
The institutions of the highly organized welfare state gives an indication of how many national ties need to be complemented by corresponding international ties in order to approach international integration. The welfare idea is so deeply rooted that its manifestations within the national framework can be superseded only by corresponding institutio...
Chapter
Introduction The social investment perspective depends on correctly understanding the characteristics of the economy as a basis for identifying appropriate policies for promoting growth and competitiveness. In this chapter we start from a characterisation of the current phase of capitalism as a ‘globalising learning economy’, where the speed of ada...
Article
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This article goes back to the original contributions, on the literature on innovation systems, and shows how the pioneering work rooted the concept in the production system. On this basis it discusses its relevance for developing countries and the need to further develop the concept.
Chapter
Recent work on national systems of innovation (Amable 2003, Hall and Soskice 2001, Lorenz and Lundvall 2006, Whitley 2006) has argued that there are systematic relations between systems of labour market regulation and social protection on the one hand, and the dynamics of knowledge accumulation and learning at the workplace on the other. Systems co...
Article
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This article establishes a link between international differences in the organization of work and modes of regulation of labor markets within Europe. The article operates with four forms of work organization (discretionary learning, lean production, Taylorism, and simple or traditional). Through a factor analysis three dimensions of national labor...
Article
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This article makes methodological points in relation to the study of the knowledge economy and gives recommendations for the editorial principles of this new journal. It argues that the journal should deliver constructive criticism of institutions, with a socioeconomic scope, and that the most important institutions to analyse are those linking div...
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Some workplaces offer employees opportunities to creatively use their own ideas while engaged in learning and problem-solving activity without much interference from managers and bosses. In this paper we analyse the preconditions for creative work. Using multilevel logistic modelling we examine what characteristics of the individual, the organisati...
Article
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Introduction When the first edition of this book was published 1992, the concept ‘national innovation system’ was known only by a handful of scholars and policy makers. Over a period of 15 years there has been a rapid and wide diffusion of the concept. Giving ‘Google’ the text strings ‘national innovation system(s)’ and ‘national system(s) of innov...
Chapter
Introduction In neoclassical trade theory the so-called primary factors of production, capital and labour, are treated as strictly national assets, assumed not to cross national borders. Technology, on the other hand, is assumed to be a transnational resource, moving freely across borders. The only fundamental difference between national systems is...
Chapter
Introduction Recently, several writers have argued that globalisation erodes national specificity and leads to long term convergence of structure, institutional set up, culture and, as a consequence, economic performance of countries. This does not correspond to observable facts nor has it been the message of this book. One of the most interesting...
Book
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The MEADOW Guidelines propose a measurement framework for collecting and interpreting internationally harmonised data on organisational change and its economic and social impacts for both private and public sector organisations. Reliable harmonised statistics on organisational change would provide the basis for effective benchmarking through the ex...
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“Is there some action a government of India could take that would lead the Indian economy to growlike Indonesia’s or Egypt’s? If so, what, exactly? If not, what is it about the “nature of India” that makes it so? The consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: Once one starts to think about them, it is har...
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An overview of how the role of science in relation to innovation has been defined over the past five decades is given, showing a change from a linear to a chain-linked model of interpretation. A third analytical grid, leading to a new model is proposed, summarizing the current research on the nature of economically useful knowledge, the diversity o...
Chapter
In einer abstrakten neoklassischen Welt benötigt man keine spezifische Betrachtung zeitlicher und räumlicher Kontexte. In einer solchen Welt spielen Nationen keine Rolle.2 Explizit treten sie nur in der Außenhandelstheorie auf; in jeder makroökonomischen Analyse der offenen Volkswirtschaft sind sie implizit präsent. Die Grundannahmen der Außenhande...
Article
'... this ambitious project definitely succeeds in putting together coherently a relatively recent body of research, and in arguing that a new policy approach to development is needed: one that puts knowledge accumulation at its core, that recognises the complex nature of learning processes and the need of new institutions to stimulate them. For th...
Book
The Innovation system approach emerged as a theoretical framework in the industrialized world in the mid 1990s to explain innovation and growth in the developed world. This Handbook is the first attempt adapt innovation systems approach to developing countries from a theoretical and empirical view point
Chapter
Introduction Over the past 10 years the world scene has changed and major new actors have taken the stage. It is thus interesting to note that the Lisbon strategy was mainly occupied with lessons to be drawn from the relative success of the US in the ICT-based new economy and that the strategy showed little concern with the five BRICS countries. To...
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This paper sheds light on how to address, conceptualize and design innovation policies taking into account the specific characteristics of innovation systems in developing countries. The main purpose is to reflect on the policy implications of adopting the innovation system perspective to the particularities of developing countries. It is only rece...
Article
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Innovation is crucial to the competitiveness of the economies of Europe, and learning is crucial to innovation. The most important trend shift is not that knowledge is becoming more important but that it is becoming obsolete more rapidly than before, so that firms and employees constantly have to learn and acquire new competencies. This involves di...
Article
This chapter is about the production, diffusion and use of knowledge seen in an economic perspective. Fundamental distinctions between tacit and explicit knowledge and between know- how, know-why, know-what and know-who are related to distinctions between public/private and local/global knowledge. It is argued that the idea of the economy as being...
Article
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It is a good thing that Europe now gives full attention to innovation and creativity. Europe still has something to learn in this field. In connection with the Lisbon declaration 2000 the objective was to make Europe the most innovative and competitive region of the world with social cohesion. But in the ensuing process 'social cohesion' became reg...
Article
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Inspired by the concepts tacit and codified knowledge introduced by Polanyi, this paper makes a distinction between two modes of innovation. On the one hand there are innovation strategies (Science, Technology, and Innovation, STI-mode) that give main emphasis to promoting R&D and creating access to explicit codified knowledge. On the other hand th...
Article
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This memorandum has been worked out in the context of 'Kunnskapsdugnaden'. A major national effort to develop and national innovation policy strategy for Norway organised by Tekna (the national union of engineers), LO (the national union of workers) and NAF (The national association of employers). It brings together central results from research on...
Article
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This article explores the link between the organization of work and innovation by developing national aggregate indicators for the EU member states of organizational forms and innovation modes (how firms innovate). The organizational indicators are constructed from the Third European Survey of Working Conditions results for 8081 salaried employees...
Article
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This paper contrasts two modes of innovation. One, the Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) mode, is based on the production and use of codified scientific and technical knowledge. The other, the Doing, Using and Interacting (DUI) mode, relies on informal processes of learning and experience-based know-how. Drawing on the results of the 2001 Da...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show why the establishment of “learning organisations” must be a central element of knowledge management – especially in firms operating on markets where product innovation is an important parameter of competition. Design/methodology/approach The argument straddles and combines insights related to management...
Chapter
Innovation has become a major field of study in economics, management, sociology, science and technology, and history. Case studies, empirical models, appreciative analyses and formal theories abound. However, after several decades of study on innovation, and so many different types of contribution, there are still many phenomena we know very littl...
Article
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This paper is based on a hypothesis that we have entered a specific phase of economic development, which we refer to as the 'learning economy', where knowledge and learning have become more important than in any earlier historical period. In this new context the learning capability of firms located in the domestic economy becomes a major concern fo...
Article
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The term national system of innovation has been around for more than 20 years and today it has become widely spread among policy makers as well as among scholars all over the world. This paper takes stock and looks ahead from a somewhat personal point of view. It also gives some insight into how and why the concept came about. The paper argues that...
Chapter
When seeking to bench mark the performance of European economies, commentators often look to compare them to the economies of Japan and the United States. How Europe’s Economies Learn shows how this is seriously misleading, and how any such comparison needs to be complemented with an understanding of the fundamental differences between Europe’s eco...
Chapter
When seeking to bench mark the performance of European economies, commentators often look to compare them to the economies of Japan and the United States. How Europe’s Economies Learn shows how this is seriously misleading, and how any such comparison needs to be complemented with an understanding of the fundamental differences between Europe’s eco...
Article
When seeking to bench mark the performance of European economies, commentators often look to compare them to the economies of Japan and the United States. How Europe’s Economies Learn shows how this is seriously misleading, and how any such comparison needs to be complemented with an understanding of the fundamental differences between Europe’s eco...

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