Toward behavioural innovation economics – Heuristics and biases in choice under novelty

A framework for ‘behavioural innovation economics’ is proposed here as a synthesis of behavioural economics and innovation economics in the specific context of choice under novelty. We seek to apply the heuristics and biases framework of behavioural economics to the study of the innovation process in order to map and analyze systematic choice failures in the innovation process. We elaborate the distinction between choice under uncertainty and choice under novelty, as well as drawing out the ‘efficient innovation hypothesis’ implicit in most behavioural models of innovation. The subject domain of a research program for behavioural innovation economics is then briefly outlined in terms of a catalogue of characteristic ways in which choice under novelty renders innovation processes subject to failure.

Introduction: Creative industries and innovation policy

This special issue of Innovation : Management, Policy & Practice (also released as a book: ISBN 978-1-921348-31-0) will explore some empirical and analytic connections between creative industries and innovation policy. Seven papers are presented. The first four are empirical, providing analysis of large and/or detailed data sets on creative industries businesses and occupations to discern their contribution to innovation. The next three papers focus on comparative and historical policy analysis, connecting creative industries policy (broadly considered, including media, arts and cultural policy) and innovation policy. To introduce this special issue I want to review the arguments connecting the statistical, conceptual and policy neologism of ‘creative industries’ to: (1) the elements of a national innovation system; and (2) to innovation policy. In approaching this connection, two overarching issues arise

An entrepreneurial model of economic and environmental co-evolution

A basic tenet of ecological economics is that economic growth and development are ultimately constrained by environmental carrying capacities. It is from this basis that notions of a sustainable economy and of sustainable economic development emerge to undergird the ‘standard model’ of ecological economics. However, the belief in ‘hard’ environmental constraints may be obscuring the important role of the entrepreneur in the coevolution of economic and environmental relations, and hence limiting or distorting the analytic focus of ecological economics and the range of policy options that are considered for sustainable economic development. This paper outlines a co-evolutionary model of the dynamics of economic and ecological systems as connected by entrepreneurial behaviour. We then discuss some of the key analytic and policy implications.

Why evolutionary realism underpins evolutionary economic analysis and theory: A reply to Runde's critique

This paper offers a reply to Jochen Runde's critical appraisal of the ontological framework underpinning Dopfer and Potts's (2008) General Theory of Economic Evolution. We argue that Runde's comprehensive critique contains several of what we perceive to be misunderstandings in relation to the key concepts of ‘generic' and ‘meso' that we seek here to unpack and redres

Cultural Science

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Cultural Science introduces a new way of thinking about culture. Adopting an evolutionary and systems approach, the authors argue that culture is the population-wide source of newness and innovation; it faces the future, not the past. Its chief characteristic is the formation of groups or 'demes' (organised and productive subpopulation; 'demos'). Demes are the means for creating, distributing and growing knowledge. However, such groups are competitive and knowledge-systems are adversarial. Starting from a rereading of Darwinian evolutionary theory, the book utilises multidisciplinary resources: Raymond Williams's 'culture is ordinary' approach; evolutionary science (e.g. Mark Pagel and Herbert Gintis); semiotics (Yuri Lotman); and economic theory (from Schumpeter to McCloskey). Successive chapters argue that: -Culture and knowledge need to be understood from an externalist ('linked brains') perspective, rather than through the lens of individual behaviour; -Demes are created by culture, especially storytelling, which in turn constitutes both politics and economics; -The clash of systems - including demes - is productive of newness, meaningfulness and successful reproduction of culture; -Contemporary urban culture and citizenship can best be explained by investigating how culture is used, and how newness and innovation emerge from unstable and contested boundaries between different meaning systems; -The evolution of culture is a process of technologically enabled 'demic concentration' of knowledge, across overlapping meaning-systems or semiospheres; a process where the number of demes accessible to any individual has increased at an accelerating rate, resulting in new problems of scale and coordination for cultural science to address. The book argues for interdisciplinary 'consilience', linking evolutionary and complexity theory in the natural sciences, economics and anthropology in the social sciences, and cultural, communication and media studies in the humanities and creative arts. It describes what is needed for a new 'modern synthesis' for the cultural sciences. It combines analytical and historical methods, to provide a framework for a general reconceptualisation of the theory of culture – one that is focused not on its political or customary aspects but rather its evolutionary significance as a generator of newness and innovation

Fashion, growth and welfare: An evolutionary approach

The task of this paper is to explore the interplay between fashion, consumer lifestyles and economic growth in the context of a world of technological change in which the menu of possibilities that consumers face is constantly changing and tending to increase in length. Our working definition of ‘fashion’ is simple, namely the tendency or behavioural norm of actors to adopt certain types or styles of customs or commodities nearly simultaneously, only to adopt a different type or style of custom or commodity in future periods. The demand spikes associated with fashion may pertain to newly introduced products or to products that have been around for some time; they may also occur in hybrid cases where a seemingly defunct product or genre is given a brief rebirth by being reincarnated in terms of a new technology

Evolutionary economics: Foundation of liberal economic philosophy

This is a schools brief style of introduction to evolutionary economics. It addresses the nature of evolutionary theory in relation to economics, and examines why evolutionary economists argue that market-capitalism is an evolutionary system. Finally, it argues that liberal economic philosophy has much stronger and more direct relationship with evolutionary economic analysis than neoclassical economic analysis

Creative industries & cultural science: A definitional odyssey

This paper argues that the definition of cultural science depends on the definition of creative industries. The problem, however, is that unlike the definition of evolutionary economics, complexity science and new cultural studies, which are also elements of cultural science, the creative industries suffer multiple non-commensurable definitions. These are reviewed and analytic implications for the definition of cultural science are examined