ABSTRACT
The recent literature on technical change and innovation has identified two major concepts of innovation systems: National Innovation Systems (NIS) and Technological Systems (TS). The former takes the geographical boundaries of the innovation system as given and analyzes the working of that composite and varied set of actors involved in the innovation and diffusion processes — firms, universities, professional schools, public research institutes, and the government — and the links among them (Freeman, 1987; Nelson, 1993). The ‘national’ boundaries aim at identifying actors that share a common culture, history, language, social and political institutions (Lundvall, 1993). As such, the NIS approach places a major emphasis on the role of nation states. A related set of contributions have analyzed ‘Local’ Innovation Systems (LIS). Here the boundaries refer to a specific region or area characterized by well defined historical, social, cultural, or productive features. It must be noted that both the NIS and the LIS perspectives do not focus on specific industries or technologies. Rather, they focus on the whole set of industries active in a specific country or region and on the institutions supporting them.
