Dynamics and architectures of innovation systems

Abstract

Innovation processes are multifaceted. Different studies usually focus on different facets of innovations without being integrated into a complete innovation system. In this thesis, system dynamics and system architecture approaches are adopted to integrate different studies in innovations and to develop a more holistic view of innovation systems. Three key elements, knowledge diversity, spatial proximity, and strategic relatedness, are found to be fundamental to innovations after analyzing and comparing different studies. However, these three factors derived from resource-based view and knowledge-based view do not seem sufficient to explain the evolutionary behaviors of innovations. Therefore, another two factors, mutation mechanisms and dynamic capabilities, are proposed to supplement the original three factors in the analysis of innovation systems.