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Now that researchers have all this work at their disposal, it would be interesting to go beyond high-technology industries such as biotechnology, and look into some other technology-based industries whose products are developed by the application of some degree of technological expertise (without the entire industries necessarily being labelled as high-technology), and whose networks are typically smaller and less complex than those belonging to biotechnology and similar industries. Consequently, their work, for the most part, is able to accommodate formal network approaches with their particular vocabulary (namely, nodes, lines, and their chartable patterns) and reliance on mathematical modelling. Here it is important to point out that as they give prominence to the role that networks play in mobilizing resources for innovation (as scientific and technological knowledge is transferred from university laboratories or R&D departments to industry and from firm to firm, and converted into commercially successful products and processes), they are basically interested in mature and diverse industries with large and complex networks. By placing networks at the heart of their study of innovation, the above mentioned researchers make the observations that, first, innovative firms and other institutions are now compelled to be part of networks, and, secondly, that the network’s structure (architecture or topology) and the manner in which they are governed (institutionalized and managed outside governmental rules and regulations, except for antitrust regulations and such) matter a great deal (Powell et al., 2005, p. It follows from this conclusion that if one wishes to thoroughly understand the most significant opportunities for innovation in any particular high-technology industry (or, perhaps, in any industry for that matter), one should consider focusing on that industry’s networks. 59 Powell, White, Koput, & Owen-Smith, 2005, p. Simply put, the networks are the locus of innovation in these industries: For example, in biotechnology, the most important force behind innovation is reported to be the “structure of its networks” and the “rules governing these networks”-not “money,” not “market power,” not even the “sheer force of novel ideas” (Powell & Grodal, 2005, p. Footnote 1 Their overall conclusion is that collaborations within networks (which are made up of firms as well as institutions such as universities, research institutes, and venture capital) are absolutely necessary components of the virtuous cycles that networks and innovation now constitute in these industries: Networks facilitate innovation, and innovative outputs then attract further collaborative ties (see Powell & Grodal, 2005, p. Consider, for example, the work of Powell and his collaborators, Hagedoorn and his collaborators, and Stuart and his collaborators on industries such as computers, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology.
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Innovation in technology-based industries? So far, most scholars of this question have focused on just a few high-technology industries. This particularity of the industry enables me not only to provide a reasonably complete account of the extent to which the networks of the flat glass industry facilitate innovation, but also to explore whether or not we need a different sort of network thinking for this particular industry-different from the thinking that the students of high-technology industries subscribe to as they study, for example, biotechnology. Since the manufacturing and secondary processing of flat glass require the application of a degree of technological expertise, the flat glass industry is also considered a technology-based industry, though not a high-technology industry in the sense that biotechnology is. So far, students of technology-based industries have focused their attention on a number of high-technology industries including, for example, biotechnology. In this chapter, I question the extent to which the networks of the flat glass industry facilitated innovation in the past and continue to do so now.