Knowledge, Complexity and Innovation Systems: Prologue

The ‘systems of innovation’ approach has emerged during the last decade as a way of studying of innovation processes as an endogenous part of the economy. The approach is not a formal theory, but a conceptual framework — a framework still in its early stages of development. The idea that underlies this framework is that the economic performance of localities such as regions or nation states depends not only on how business corporations perform, but also on how they interact with each other and with the public sector in creating knowledge and promoting its dissemination. Innovatory firms operate within a common institutional setup; they also depend on, contribute to and use a common knowledge infrastructure.