Innovation Policies, Business Creation and Economic Development - A Comparative Approach

It is now apparent to many scholars and practitioners that research and development activities and innovation are the pathways to sustainable economic growth. One also recognizes that delving into a topic as such is rather challenging as it is a multidimensional task. We have learned quite a bit on the innovation-growth relationship of the dev- oped countries based on the extensive research on the topic. However, we are yet to understand the very same process for the developing countries where the challenges are expected to be paramount. There obviously is few empirical and theoretical discussion on this topic. This book dares to provide a succinct discussion on a wide array of issues on the innovation and growth relationship for the developing countries. The book starts off by providing the reader with a promising - ternative to endogenous growth models that entails understanding the effect of variables, such as technological change on growth in cons- erable detail. The next step in the book involves a thorough analysis of economic growth models and how the investment climate affects innovationand entrepreneurship and hence economic growth. Against this background is examined the context of the telecommunications industry in Turkey. Following this, we delve into understanding the radical versusincremental innovationactivities,where itis argued that developing nations are more likely to engage in radical innovation, whereas developing nations are engaged in incremental innovation.

Neslihan Aydgoan is Assistant Professor, Department of Economic, Cankaya University, and Visiting Assistant Professor, Duquesne University, Donahue Graduate School of Business. She has served as an Instructor, University of Maastricht; Visiting Scholar, Carnegi Mellon University, Software Industry Center; and Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. She has published on such topics as knowledge management, innovation, entrepreneurship, high-tech industries, and economic development, and is coauthor of Social Capital and Business Development in High-Technology Clusters (Springer, forthcoming, 2008).