Innovation as the craft of combination : Perspectives on technology and economy in the spirit of Schumpeter

Sammanfattning: Through a multi-faceted engagement with the work of Joseph A. Schumpeter, the famous Austrian economist, this thesis explores the nature of innovation in processes of techno-economic change. The spirit of Schumpeter inhabits this book in three ways. Firstly, all the papers collected here follow Schumpeter in his conviction that the most essential feature of capitalist life is change. Secondly, the methodological and epistemological commitments of the papers in this thesis largely coincide with those Schumpeter set out for the "proper study" of techno-economic change. Thirdly, the last two papers collected here take Schumpeter's classic theory of innovation and entrepreneurship as the startingpoint for an extended re-evaluation of the character of entrepreneurial action inthe twentieth century.Schumpeter defined innovation as the "carrying out of new combinations". He also saw success in the execution of this task as "a feat not of intellect, but of will". The papers collected in this thesis argue the continued relevance of this vision of innovation. However, while Schumpeter liked to link the powerful will behind innovative success with the extraordinary efforts of isolated individuals, the papers in this volume prefer to link it with the growth and survival of fragile collectivities. The manufacture and maintenance of a collective will to innovate is put forward in this thesis as capturing the very essence of the entrepreneurial function in the late twentieth century. Taking complementary inspiration from Schumpeter's "competitive" model of democracy; successful entrepreneurs are portrayed as the bearers of highly compelling moral visions; sufficiently persuasive to suffuse economic life with higher meaning and draw people together in joint action. To help bring conceptual argument out of abstraction, the life and times of two concrete regimes of innovation are recounted in the last paper in this thesis.