Social Innovations, Institutional Change and Economic Performance: Making Sense of Structrual Adjustment Processes in Industrial Sectors, Regions and Societies (Sitra's Publication) PDF
Preview Social Innovations, Institutional Change and Economic Performance: Making Sense of Structrual Adjustment Processes in Industrial Sectors, Regions and Societies (Sitra's Publication)
Social Innovations, Institutional Change and Economic Performance Social Innovations, Institutional Change and Economic Performance Making Sense of Structural Adjustment Processes in Industrial Sectors, Regions and Societies Edited by Timo J. Hämäläinen Foresight Director,Sitra,the Finnish Innovation Fund,Finland Risto Heiskala Professor of Social and Public Policy,University of Jyväskylä, Finland IN ASSOCIATION WITH SITRA,THE FINNISH INNOVATION FUND Edward Elgar Cheltenham,UK • Northampton,MA,USA © Sitra,the Finnish Innovation Fund 2007 All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical or photocopying,recording,or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited Glensanda House Montpellier Parade Cheltenham Glos GL50 1UA UK Edward Elgar Publishing,Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library ofCongress Cataloguing in Publication Data Social innovations,institutional change,and economic performance :making sense of structural adjustment processes in industrial sectors,regions,and societies / edited by Timo J.Hämäläinen and Risto Heiskala. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.Economic development—Sociological aspects.2.Economic development—Social aspects. 3.Social institutions—Economic aspects. 4.Structural adjustment (Economic policy)—Developed countries. I.Hämäläinen,Timo J. II.Heiskala,Risto. HD75.S625 2007 306.3—dc22 2006037236 Sitra’s Publication Series,publication no.281 ISSN 0785-8338 (Sitra) Sitra,the Finnish Innovation Fund www.sitra.fi ISBN 978 1 84720 253 6 Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd,Bodmin,Cornwall. Contents List of contributors vii Prefatory chapter:Institutions and social innovation viii W.Richard Scott 1 Introduction:Historical transformation challenges established structures 1 Risto Heiskala and Timo J.Hämäläinen PART I THEORETICAL,EMPIRICAL AND POLICY PERSPECTIVES TO STRUCTURAL CHANGE 2 Social innovation,structural adjustment and economic performance 11 Timo J.Hämäläinen 3 Social innovations:Structural and power perspectives 52 Risto Heiskala 4 Social innovation or hegemonic change? Rapid paradigm change in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s 80 Risto Heiskala and Timo J.Hämäläinen 5 Policy implications:How to facilitate the structural adjustment and renewal of advanced societies? 95 Timo J.Hämäläinen PART II ADDITIONAL PERSPECTIVES TO STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT IN SECTORS,REGIONS AND NATION STATES 6 Structural adjustments and conflicting recipes in the US auto industry 123 J.-C.Spender 7 From path dependency to path creation? Baden-Württemberg and the future of the German model 159 Gerd Schienstock v vi Social innovations 8 Divergence among mature and rich industrial economies – the case of Sweden entering a New and Immediate Economy 214 Gunnar Eliasson 9 Social innovation and institutional change in Ireland in the late 20th century:From ‘the poorest of the rich’to ‘Europe’s shining light’? 280 Julia S.O’Connor Index 305 Contributors Gunnar Eliasson,Royal Institute of Technology,Sweden Timo J.Hämäläinen,Sitra,the Finnish Innovation Fund,Finland Risto Heiskala,University of Jyväskylä,Finland Julia S.O’Connor,University of Ulster,Northern Ireland Gerd Schienstock,University of Tampere,Finland W.Richard Scott,Stanford University,USA J.-C.Spender,Open University Business School,UK vii Prefatory chapter: Institutions and social innovation W. Richard Scott Institutions again matter! After decades of denial, oversight and misspecification – under labels varying from behaviorism to individualism to neoclassical economics extending for many decades well into the twenti- eth century – social scientists have rediscovered the pivotal role played by institutions in social life. Institutional arguments are once again being formulated across the social sciences – by anthropologists, economists, social historians,management scholars,political scientists and sociologists. Coase,Commons,Durkheim,Marx,Weber and Veblen are again being read and their insights reclaimed and renewed.And institutional approaches are being crafted to examine social processes and structures across a full spec- trum of levels of analysis ranging from games and groups to organizations, organizational populations, organizational fields, sectors, societies and transnational systems. While the reach of institutions is wide, in the last two decades interest and research attention have been concentrated at more macro levels.Fueled by globalization fever,much attention has been devoted to rapidly increas- ing levels ofinternational trade and economic interdependence.Seemingly, everyone is talking about globalization.Some accounts imply that we are all trapped on a ‘run-away world’– that we are unwilling passengers on ‘a very fast train without drivers’ fueled by market forces, weakening state boundaries and technological breakthroughs. Everyone is not wrong. Weinhabit an increasingly interdependent planet,but one I,together with the editors and contributors to this volume,believe is amenable to analysis and to intervention. As Guillén (2001b) reminds us,globalization forces have been at work for a long time,and our own efforts are only the most recent in a long series of attempts to develop useful conceptual frameworks for interpreting and attempting to guide modernization and globalization processes.Influential previous approaches include modernization theory (Rostow,1960),depen- dence theory (Evans, 1979), world systems theory (Wallerstein, 1974), late-industrialization arguments (Gerschenkron, 1962) and neoclassical viii Prefatory chapter ix approaches (Leff, 1978). Compared to these earlier perspectives, current institutional approaches1offer a number of important advantages: ● They eschew a ‘totalistic’ or monolithic view of modernization processes and economic development. ● They encourage detailed attention to the specifics of institutional variety at the organization,sector or societal levels.2 ● They support attention to the complex interactions among institu- tional processes at multiple levels. ● They recognize that the globalization processes now under way not only conduce to areas in which structures and activities converge,but also promote diversity and innovation. INSTITUTIONAL ELEMENTS Contemporary or neoinstitutional theory got under way in the 1970s,with the work of Berger and Luckmann (1967), DiMaggio and Powell (1983), Hall (1986),March and Olsen (1984),Meyer and Rowan (1977),Meyer and Scott (1983),Moe (1984) and Williamson (1975) leading the way.A flood of theoretical advances informed by a wide range of empirical studies have followed since then and up to the present time,making institutional theory one of the most lively intellectual arenas within the social sciences (see Scott,forthcoming).While there is clear maturation and progress,as ofthis time there remain many and varied conceptions of institutions – for a sam- pling, see Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992), Campbell (2004), Hall and Soskice (2001), Nee (2005), North (1990, 2005), Ostrom (1990), Peters (1999) and Pierson (2004). It will not come as a surprise that I prefer my own conception of institution: Institutions are social structures that have attained a high degree of resilience [and are] composed of cultural-cognitive, normative, and regulative elements that, together with associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning to social life.(Scott,2001:48) Fortunately for current purposes, this conception has been generally embraced by the editors of this volume (see Chapters 2 and 3). My definition differs in a number of respects from competing concep- tions: ● It accords more emphasis than most others to cultural-cognitive ele- ments – shared beliefs, assumptions, organizing templates, schema.
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