Networks, Competition, Innovation and Industrial Growth

Some structural elements of networks carry over to features of dynamic competition in network industries that, through increasing return mechanisms on innovation based industries, generate sustainable growth and create industrial linkages as a backbone to industrial/economic growth. The project focuses on the integration of network structure, industrial competition and industrial growth processes into a coherent mechanism design. This text should be of interest to policy analysts/ makers, industry strategists/ consultants, students of industrial economics/organization, entrepreneurship/ management and economic journalists alike with interest in and focus on strategic and structural foundations of network economies and their industrial implications. The book is also designed to be used as a text for a course in business strategy as it could serve as a supplementary text to industrial organization and being part of the micro-foundations of economic growth and development neglected in the mostly macro-centered economic growth literature. Content-wise, links are drawn from the structure of networks to dynamic competition in innovation focused industries, its restrictions and abuses of dominance in market structures and potential future markets for antitrust, to the growth of industries through increasing returns mechanisms in complementary markets and the consequences for industrial growth and development. Coverage includes: 1. Integrating Networks, Dynamic Competition and Industrial Growth, 2. Networks, Technology and Competition, 3. Dynamics of Competition and Market Dynamics, 4. Increasing Returns Mechanism , 5.Industrial and Economic Growth: A Review, 6. Mechanism Design for Economic Development, and 7. Network-centered Industrial Growth. The central theme of this compilation is the interplay of competition, innovation, cooperation and market structure along vertical and horizontal industry lines. Interaction and interdependencies are facilitated and sometimes bottlenecked through networks most naturally prevalent in high technology industries. This forms the core basis of business strategy relating to the growth of business and complementary activities through innovation, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and related strategic choices.