This book provides a set of principles for fostering innovation in people (workers and consumers), in firms and in government, taking an in-depth look at the scope of innovation and how it is changing, as well as where and how it is occurring.

This book provides a set of principles for fostering innovation in people (workers and consumers), in firms and in government, taking an in-depth look at the scope of innovation and how it is changing, as well as where and how it is occurring.

Patent holders are increasingly making voluntary, public commitments to limit the enforcement and other exploitation of their patents. The best-known form of patent pledge is the so-called FRAND commitment, in which a patent holder commits to license patents to manufacturers of standardized products on terms that are “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.” Patent pledges have also been appearing in fields well beyond technical standard-setting, including open source software, green technology and the biosciences. This book explores the motivations, legal characteristics and policy goals of these increasingly popular private ordering tools.

In the last few years, the boom in biobanking has prompted a lively debate on a host of interrelated legal issues, such as the Gordian knot of the ownership of biological materials, as well as privacy concerns. The latter are due to the difficulty of accepting that biological samples must be completely anonymous without making it practically impossible to exploit their information potential. The issues also include the delicate role and the changing content of the donor’s “informed consent” as the main legal tool that may serve to link the privacy and property interests of donors with the research interests and the set of principles that should be at the core of the biobanking practice. Lastly, the IP issues and the patentability of biological samples as well as the protection of databases storing genetic information obtained from the samples are covered. Collecting eighteen essays written by eminent scholars from Italy, the US, the UK and Canada, this book provides new solutions to these problems. From a comparative viewpoint, it explores the extent to which digital technology may assist in tackling the numerous regulatory issues raised by the practice of biobanking for research purposes. These issues may be considered and analyzed under the traditional paradigms of Property, Privacy, Informed Consent and Intellectual Property.

Governance Challenges and Innovations examines the capacity of contemporary governments to act upon and address the pressing problems of our time. It highlights four basic administrative capacities that matter for governance and considers the way in which states have addressed particular governance challenges.

For several decades now, advanced economies across the globe have been undergoing a process of rapid transformation towards becoming knowledge economies. It is now widely recognized that intangible capital has been a crucial element in the growth performance of these economies and their firms. In the author's view, "intangible capital" serves as the most appropriate umbrella term for capturing several dimensions of capital that are not tangible in nature but are nevertheless fundamentally important for growth. The term encompasses investments in education (human capital) and in informal (social capital) and formal (rule of law) institutions by the public sector and households, as well as investments by businesses aimed at enhancing their knowledge base, such as software, innovative property, and economic competencies. Intangible Capital and Growth is the first of two open access volumes presenting a selection of the author's essays on Labor Productivity, Monetary Economics, and the Political Economy, which represent the first part of his habilitation in economics. This first volume brings together eight of the author's essays, selected to provide an overview of the evolution of his research on intangible capital and growth [Resumen de la editorial]

Die gesellschaftstheoretisch orientierte Debatte über Merkmale und Entwicklungstendenzen von Wissensgesellschaften wird seit langem und in vielen Facetten geführt. Große Bedeutung haben dabei die Veränderungen der Erwerbsarbeit und die Verwissenschaftlichung des ökonomischen Systems. Indem Arbeitsprozesse in Daten und Informationen als wissenstechnische Prozeduren übersetzt werden, gewinnt Wissen an Bedeutung in der industriellen und Dienstleistungsproduktion und führt zu neuen Organisationsstrukturen von Ökonomien. Dieser Band greift - angelehnt an aktuelle empirisch ausgerichtete Forschungsarbeiten im europäischen Kontext - zahlreiche Aspekte dieses Wandels auf. Die Beiträge reflektieren ihn übergreifend sowie anhand dreier spezifischer Untersuchungsfelder: Industrie, neue berufliche Qualifikationen sowie Geschlechtergerechtigkeit. Hierbei wird deutlich, dass diese Bereiche durch die technologische und organisatorische Dynamik selbst stark unter Veränderungsdruck geraten sind. Die Schaffung neuer Wissensprozesse ruft komplexe und vielschichtige soziale Prozesse hervor, die nicht generalisierend bewertet werden können, sondern in ihrem jeweiligen Kontext betrachtet werden müssen.

The 2010 edition of the OECD Information Technology Outlook analyses the economic crisis and recovery, and suggests that the outlook for IT goods and services industries is good after weathering a turbulent economic period better than during the crisis at the beginning of the 2000s.

This book evaluates the 2014 EU public procurement law reform from a sustainability perspective.

The sixth edition of Entrepreneurship and Small Firms has been fully revised and updated with contributions from leading academics in the field. Retaining the popular style of the previous editions and offering a clear and accessible introduction to the topic, this book provides a thorough coverage of entrepreneurial and small firm theory, concepts, evidence, policy and practice. Integrating academic theory with the day-to-day realities that entrepreneurs may encounter it furnishes the student with a comprehensive analysis of entrepreneurship.This well established text is justly popular for its clear and accessible approach, presenting the key topics of an entrepreneurship module in an engaging yet rigorous style. The book covers wide ranging topics from the economic influences on entrepreneurship and sources of finance, to issues of diversity, family business and social entrepreneurship.New to this edition is a chapter on Corporate Entrepreneurship offering students a unique insight into entrepreneurship activities in larger businesses and organizations. A reorganized chapter structure for the sixth edition allows students to navigate the four parts of the text from introductory concepts, the domains of entrepreneurship, through to strategy and to implementation. New part cases help to highlight the core themes and apply them to real business scenarios.