Technology Infrastructure: Introduction to the Special Issue

Technology infrastructure supports the design, deployment and use of both individual technology-based components and the systems of such components that form the knowledgebased economy. As such, it plays a central role in the innovation process and in the promotion of the diffusion of technologies. Thus, it is an important element contributing to the formation and operation of innovation systems and innovation performance in any modern economy. It is a characteristic of the innovation process in such economies that it depends not only upon the internal innovative efforts of firms but additionally on their links with a wider framework of innovation supporting activities, that is to say, as Alfred Marshall once expressed it, it depends on the internal and the external organization of the firm. It is to the formation of the external organization of innovation processes that technology infrastructure makes its vital contribution. technology infrastructure | economics | innovation | knowledge based economy |