Zizi Goschin

English

Research Papers in Economics

 
 
BOOK REVIEW 
 
Manfred M. Fischer, Innovation,  etworks, and Knowledge Spillovers, Springer, 2006 
by Zizi Goschin, Academy of Economic Studies of Bucharest 
 
 
 
The new interactive models of innovation emphasise the central role of feedback effects between the 
different phases of innovation process and the many interactions of innovative activities within and 
between firms, which call for appropriate organisational structures and mechanisms such as networks. 
The expansion of networks and knowledge spillovers in the recent years dramatically changed the 
concept of innovation and generated a growing literature on this topic as a result. A perfect example in 
this  respect  is  Innovation,  Networks,  and  Knowledge  Spillovers,  a  collection  of  selected  essays 
published by Springer in 2006. The book is coordinated by Manfred M. Fischer, Professor in Economic 
Geography and GIScience at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, one of 
the most distinguished representatives of the world’s regional scientists.  
The present book it is a collection of articles and book chapters on key themes in regional 
innovation area organized in three sections that have distinct but interrelated themes. 
 
PART I   Innovation and Technological Change concentrates on the spatial variation of the 
processes of innovation and technological change, both regionally within countries and internationally 
between countries.  
Chapter  2  –  Innovation  and  Technological  Change:  An  Austrian British  Comparison  (with  N. 
Alderman) is addressing the issue of international comparisons in innovative performance processing  
data from surveys of comparable industries in Great Britain and Austria by means of simple cross-
tabulations and multivariate logit models. The empirical results point to significant differences between 
these  two  countries  in  the  adoption  of  a  number  of  new  process  technologies  based  upon 
microelectronics. Manfred M. Fischer, Innovation,  etworks, and Knowledge Spillovers, Springer, 2006 by Zizi 
Goschin 
 
124 
 
Chapter  3  -  Technology,  Organisation  and  Export driven  Research  and  Development  in  Austria's 
Electronics Industry (with L. Suarez-Villa) analyses the relationship between R&D intensity, territorial 
location and organisational characteristics. The statistical analysis of the association  between this three 
factors is combined with subcontracting and just-in-time production methods revealing the prevalence 
of two-way subcontracting which helps firms to specialise and avoid implementing costly production 
techniques.  
Chapter 4 - Information Processing, Technological Progress, and Retail Market Dynamics (with J. 
Cukrowski) carries on an analysis of the potential impact that technological progress in information 
processing has on the size of retail markets and shows how the ability of firms to process information 
and predict demand affects the  retail  markets.  The study also shows that risk-averse  firms always 
devote resources to demand forecasting and that the volume of output supplied through retail markets is 
greater than it would be if producers traded directly with consumers. 
 
PART II   Innovation and  etworks approaches the topic of network formation in the context 
of the new economy, focusing mainly on the interactive nature of the innovation process and the need 
for co-operation in order to cope with increasing market pressures. 
Chapter  5 - The   ew  Economy  and   etworking  addresses  the  main  problems  of  the  formation  of 
networks in the knowledge based economy and reviews the literature devoted to this topic. It also 
points  to  the  new  role  of  government  that  is  emerging  as  the  knowledge-driven  and  globalising 
economy alters the way firms organise their operation within and across nation states. 
Chapter 6 - The Innovation Process and  etwork Activities of Manufacturing Firms brings evidence 
from  a  comprehensive  questionnaire  of  manufacturing  firms  in  the  metropolitan  region  of  Vienna 
indicating  the  importance  of  customer  and  user  producer  linkages  and  co-operation  in  the  pre-
competitive stage of the innovation process. 
Chapter 7 - Knowledge Interactions between Universities and Industry in Austria: Sectoral Patterns 
and Determinants (with D. Schartinger, C. Rammer and J. Fröhlich ) explores the knowledge flows 
from universities to firms in the Austrian national innovation system revealing a variety of patterns of 
interaction between 46 fields of science and 49 economic sectors.  
 Manfred M. Fischer, Innovation,  etworks, and Knowledge Spillovers, Springer, 2006 by Zizi 
Goschin 
 
125 
 
PART  III     Knowledge  Creation,  Diffusion  and  Spillovers presents both conceptual  and 
empirical works on spatial knowledge spillovers from various points of view: the systems of innovation 
approach, the regional production function approach and the case-control matching approach.  
Chapter  8  -  Innovation,  Knowledge  Creation  and  Systems  of  Innovation  specifies  elements  and 
relations that are essential to the conceptual core of the systems of innovation framework and argues 
that there is no a priori reason to emphasise the national over the regional scale as an appropriate mode 
for the analysis, irrespective of time and place. 
Chapter 9 - The Role of Space in the Creation of Knowledge in Austria: An Exploratory Spatial Data 
Analysis (with J. Fröhlich, H. Gassler and A. Varga) uses descriptive and exploratory techniques such 
as Moran’s I test for spatial autocorrelation and the Moran scatterplot to compare the clusters of the 
knowledge output (measured in terms of patent counts) with the concentration of the knowledge input 
(measured by R&D expenditure in  manufacturing, university research  activities and manufacturing 
employment). Empirical evidence shows that knowledge production in Austria tends to focus largely in 
mechanical areas of manufacturing rather than in high-tech fields such as the electronic sectors and this 
pattern seems to be stable for the past two decades. 
Chapter 10 - Spatial Knowledge Spillovers and University Research: Evidence from Austria (with A. 
Varga)  estimates  knowledge  spillovers  from  universities  within  a  regional  knowledge  production 
function framework. The empirical results confirm the presence of geographically mediated university 
spillovers that transcend the spatial scale of political districts and indicate that such spillovers follow a 
specific distance decay pattern. 
Chapter 11 - Patents, Patent Citations and the Geography of Knowledge Spillovers (with T. Scherngell 
and E. Jansenberger) uses patent citation data to measure the extent of knowledge spillovers between 
high-technology firms in Europe finding strong evidence for the localisation of knowledge spillovers at 
two different levels (country, region). The degree of localisation is found to be significantly different 
across regions as well. 
 
As  a  result  of  an  original  and  inspired  combination  between  solid  theoretical  considerations  and 
empirical research results, raising important questions on major changes in the area of innovation, and 
pointing out new ideas and further developments in a regional context, this book  is extremely valuable 
for the worldwide regional scientists and should act as an inspiration for further research and exchange 
of ideas on innovation, networks, and knowledge spillovers. 

BOOK REVIEW: Manfred M. Fischer, Innovation, Networks, and Knowledge Spillovers, Springer, 2006

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