Félix-Fernando Muñoz

Evolving Capabilities and Innovative Intentionality: Some Reflections on the Role of Intention Within Innovation Processes

Summary We may argue that individual and organisational dynamic capabilities evolve through the interaction of intentions and action goals. Capabilities are renewed and reshaped by the appearance of new action goals. A feedback process between capabilities and goals opens up new possibilities of action. This may happen when agents (organisations and individuals) act towards their goals, transforming capabilities and renewing the spaces where actions are conceived and deployed. Moreover, agents’ goals vary not only in the sense that they are different but also because they are characterised by different transforming intensities. The concept of innovative intentionality synthesizes this idea. Innovative intentionality is defined as the will to conceive or imagine realities which differ from the perceived realities, with the purpose of making them effective. This concept appears to be useful for addressing the divergence of innovative dynamics among organisations and societies.

Using a rate equations approach to model World population trends

According to UN data and projections, the World population will begin to decrease by the middle of this century. This paper uses rate equations (fully analogous to those employed in condensed matter physics) to simulate the time evolution of World population, making use of UN population data in the time interval 1900–2010, and to extrapolate the evolution of World population into the near future. This approach has not been used in economics and population dynamics. The simulation predicts a population decline by mid-century. The economic consequences of a population decline would be far reaching.

Agents intentionality, capabilities and the performance of systems of innovation

Abstract The performances of different Systems of Innovation (SI) vary substantially due to the fact that, apart from the differences in the underlying technologies, institutions, etc., there are specific causes at work. In particular, we refer to the intentionality of the agents interacting within a System of Innovation to find out the relationship between agents’ goals, and the SI’s performance. The underlying thesis is that agent intentionality is a necessary condition for a substantive explanation of the dynamism of any socio-economic system. This paper departs from an abstract definition of a system as a set of constitutive elements and the connections among them serving a common purpose. It also explores how agents’ intentionality and capabilities shape the structure, evolution and performance of an SI. In this context an evolutionary efficiency criterion is proposed.

Entrepreneurial effort and economic growth

Entrepreneurs allocate resources among different activities that generates a profit; in particular, in this paper entrepreneurs consider at each instant of time both innovation and rent-seeking as alternative sources of profit. The consequences in terms of economic growth are obviously quite different: the higher the amount of innovations in the economy the higher the rate of economic growth and vice versa. What are the determinants of these different entrepreneurial behavior? Is there anything in the nature of entrepreneurs that essentially distinguishes between innovators and rent seekers? A main claim of this paper is that differences among entrepreneurs are not essential but of degree: all of them are in fact profit-seekers and the only difference is to be found in their attitude towards innovation as a source of profit. In this sense entrepreneurial effort is defined and modelled for each entrepreneur according to its propensity to innovate and the corresponding Entrepreneurial Problem (EP) is posed and solved both analytically and via simulation in terms of profit maximization. The individual decisions measured in units of innovation are then aggregated to calculate the innovation quantity for a given population based on the distribution of heterogeneous entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurship rate and the implications for economic growth are also modelled. Consequently, policy makers should focus on reducing the entry barriers and the costs of production in order to stimulate the entrepreneurial activity and maximize the innovation quantity.

Linear Modelling And Simulation Of An Endogenous Growth Model With Heterogeneous Entrepreneurs.

failure of international aid and expansionary internal economic policy. Experience attempts to solve this economic model of endogenous growth based on the Rivera-Batiz & Romer (1991) model that can explain how changes in the structure of payoffs of the economy can affect the rate of growth of output via the rate of change of the number of innovations. Different characterizations of heterogeneous entrepreneurs in an economy are modelled as well as their intention to innovate. We solve the entrepreneur problem using both analytical equations and simulation, and compare the solutions of a simplified linear problem in terms of future developments and applications.

Firms' connections and cluster opportunity: The case of biotechnology in the Community of Madrid

Much of the Spanish biotechnology industry activity operates in the Community of Madrid (CM). Regional and local authorities are very interested in constituting a biotechnology cluster in the Community. All the necessary elements can be found in the region: as shown, there exists the opportunity for the emergence of a biotechnology cluster in CM. However, at the present time no biotechnology cluster can be said to exist as such in the region; there is only a cluster opportunity. In order to demonstrate this proposition, we provide an overview of the biotechnology industry, focusing on the firms that operate in Madrid and their connections between themselves and the other actors in the system. Any cluster strategy that aims to develop a biotechnology cluster in Madrid should consider the form of these connections.