Innovation Networks and Complex Technologies: Policy Implications of the Unknown, and the Unknowable

Research and Event Summaries

Project Abstract

Those who make public policies aimed at fostering the innovation of complex technologies (e.g., aircraft) face the same daunting challenges as private sector managers. Complexity means that while public policy rests on some things that are known, the formulation and implementation of policies will inevitably confront many unknowns and some things that are likely to be unknowable. Much of that which is unknown and unknowable emerges from the ever more important role of the organizational learning that takes place in complex network organizations (e.g., strategic alliances) as they coevolve with their complex technologies. Continuous organizational learning and repeated adaptations are now givens for both corporate strategy and public policy in this arena.

Faculty

Robert Rycroft, Professor of International Science and Technology Policy and International Affairs, The George Washington University

Events

Innovation Networks and Complex Technologies: Policy Implications of the Unknown, and the Unknowable
Globalization Brown Bag, January 2004

Global Corporations vs Global NGOs: Who's Driving Globalization?
Globalization Brown Bag, March 2003

Publications

Technology-Based Globalization Indicators: The Centrality Of Innovation Network Data
Occasional Paper, CSGOP-02-09

Self-Organizing Innovation Networks: Implications for Globalization
Occasional Paper, CSGOP-03-16

The GW Center for the Study of Globalization
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Email: gwcsg@gwu.edu • http://gstudynet.org/