New Dynamics of Innovation and Competition – serie

There has been increasing interest and debate in recent years on the instituted nature of economic processes in general and the related ideas of the market, in particular the competitive process. This debate lies at the interface between two largely independent disciplines, economics and sociology, and reflects an attempt to bring the two fields of discourse more closely together. This book, newly available in paperback, explores this interface in a number of ways, looking at the competitive process and market relations from a number of different perspectives. It includes a wide range of contributors, most of whom are leading writers and thinkers in the field.The book considers the social role of economic institutions in society and examines the various meanings embedded in the word 'markets', as well as developing arguments on the nature of competition as an instituted economic process, rather than as competition being something that disturbs norms or institutions. It goes on to consider the deeper and more involved connection between markets and cognition, explaining how institutions can ease cognitive difficulties, and the effect of culture on markets and competition is also fully studied.This book will be of vital use to students and academics working in the fields of economics, sociology and business studies. It sketches the agenda for future research about markets and the competitive process.An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

In this book, available for the first time in paperback, the complexity and the significance of the foods we eat are analysed from a variety of perspectives, by sociologists, economists, geographers and anthropologists. Chapters address a number of intriguing questions: how do people make judgements about taste? How do such judgements come to be shared by groups of people? What social and organisational processes result in foods being certified as of decent or proper quality? How has dissatisfaction with the food system been expressed? what alternatives are thought to be possible? The multi-disciplinary analysis of this book explores many different answers to such questions. The first part of the book focuses on theoretical and conceptual issues, the second part considers processes of formal and informal regulation, while the third part examines social and political responses to industrialised food production and mass consumption. Qualities of food will be of interest to researchers and students in all the social science disciplines that are concerned with food, whether marketing, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, human nutrition or economics.

The work of Karl Polanyi has gained in influence in recent years to become a point of reference to a wide range of leading authors in the fields of economics, politics, sociology and social policy. Newly available in paperback, this volume is a combination of reflections on, and assessment of, the nature of Polanyi’s contribution and new strands of work, both theoretical and empirical, that has been inspired by Polanyi’s insights. It gathers together the key contributions to the first ever workshop on the work of Karl Polanyi held in the United Kingdom. Several of the contributions develop Polanyian ideas in relation to contemporary capitalism. However, in a critical spirit, other contributions in the volume substantially transform his concept ‘instituted economic process’ in considering a broad range of contemporary socio-economic change: markets for mobile telephony, call centre operations and European labour markets.

This book is about how to understand the huge variety of markets and market organisation in contemporary economies through a dialogue between a group of UK and French scholars. It presents a critique and development of institutional views of markets, and ‘puts markets in their place’ in a wider political and social context. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis in markets, the book makes a topical and significant contribution on the importance of the rules and regulations that constitute markets, and their broader political and legal frameworks. Moreover, the disruption of markets brings to the fore their interconnection with the broader economy, with production, distribution and consumption in a way often ignored at the height of market bubbles.Both theoretical and empirical, a wide range of markets are considered, capital markets for new technology and venture capital, for food, domestic services and scientific knowledge. The authors address how markets emerge and disappear, or indeed why they fail to appear, as well has how they become stable and institutionalised.

The structure and regulation of consumption and demand has recently become of great interest to sociologists and economists alike, and at the same time there is growing interest in trying to understand the patterns and drivers of technological innovation. This book, newly available in paperback, brings together a range of sociologists and economists to study the role of demand and consumption in the innovative process.The book starts with a broad conceptual overview of ways that the sociological and economics literatures address issues of innovation, demand and consumption. It goes on to offer different approaches to the economics of demand and innovation through an evolutionary framework, before reviewing how consumption fits into evolutionary models of economic development. Food consumption is then looked at as an example of innovation by demand, including an examination of the dynamic nature of socially-constituted consumption routines.The book includes a number of illuminating case studies, including an analysis of how black Americans use consumption to express collective identity, and a number of demand–innovation relationships within matrices or chains of producers and users or other actors, including service industries such as security, and the environmental performance of companies. The involvement of consumers in innovation is looked at, including an analysis of how consumer needs may be incorporated in the design of high-tech products. The final chapter argues for the need to build an economic sociology of demand that goes from micro-individual through to macro-structural features.This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9, Industry, innovation and infrastructure.An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

The structure and regulation of consumption and demand has recently become of great interest to sociologists and economists alike, and at the same time there is growing interest in trying to understand the patterns and drivers of technological innovation. This book brings together a range of sociologists and economists to study the role of demand and consumption in the innovative process.The book starts with a broad conceptual overview of ways that the sociological and economics literatures address issues of innovation, demand and consumption. It goes on to offer different approaches to the economics of demand and innovation through an evolutionary framework, before reviewing how consumption fits into evolutionary models of economic development. Food consumption is then looked at as an example of innovation by demand, including an examination of the dynamic nature of socially-constituted consumption routines.The book includes a number of illuminating case studies, including an analysis of how black Americans use consumption to express collective identity, and a number of demand–innovation relationships within matrices or chains of producers and users or other actors, including service industries such as security, and the environmental performance of companies. The involvement of consumers in innovation is looked at, including an analysis of how consumer needs may be incorporated in the design of high-tech products. The final chapter argues for the need to build an economic sociology of demand that goes from micro-individual through to macro-structural features.An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

The structure and regulation of consumption and demand has recently become of great interest to sociologists and economists alike, and at the same time there is growing interest in trying to understand the patterns and drivers of technological innovation. This book brings together a range of sociologists and economists to study the role of demand and consumption in the innovative process.The book starts with a broad conceptual overview of ways that the sociological and economics literatures address issues of innovation, demand and consumption. It goes on to offer different approaches to the economics of demand and innovation through an evolutionary framework, before reviewing how consumption fits into evolutionary models of economic development. Food consumption is then looked at as an example of innovation by demand, including an examination of the dynamic nature of socially-constituted consumption routines.The book includes a number of illuminating case studies, including an analysis of how black Americans use consumption to express collective identity, and a number of demand–innovation relationships within matrices or chains of producers and users or other actors, including service industries such as security, and the environmental performance of companies. The involvement of consumers in innovation is looked at, including an analysis of how consumer needs may be incorporated in the design of high-tech products. The final chapter argues for the need to build an economic sociology of demand that goes from micro-individual through to macro-structural features.An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.