INNOVATION AND INDUSTRIALIZATION - A LONG-TERM COMPARISON

This article aims to link the micro-level changes in firms, as the sou rce of production behavior, with meso-level changes in industrial stru cture and macro-level changes in growth and development performance. I t focuses on the three great industrial revolutions of the last quarte r of the present millennium. These differed among themselves in almost every major way, which inhibits generalization but shows that systems (here the ''national systems of production'') are very different, and that ''convergence'' of a later industrializing country upon its pred ecessor is improbable. Each industrial revolution possesses considerab le internal logic but is less flexible in regard to adopting features of its successor. As a result, mismatches arise over time between the specified constituents of the production systems, as demonstrated by e conomic phenomena such as unemployment and political phenomena such as ideology. The task of resolving such mismatches has fallen back on th e micro level of firms and households, which itself has imposed seriou s strains on the productive system. Such heterogeneity imposes severe limitations on the ability to link technological forecasting and socia l change in the long term. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.