Wohlgemuth, M. (2005). “The Communicative Character of Capitalistic Competition: A Hayekian Response to the Habermasian Challenge.”The Independent Review, 10(1): 83-115.
“Ideal speech situations”, “domination-free discourse” or “deliberative communities” describe political ideals proudly cherished by many sociologists. The sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, motivation is to mobilise political discourse as an instrument to tame or transform the capitalistic “system” according to alleged needs of “society”. Most economists and defenders of capitalistic competition, in return, don’t care about communicative communities. The individual market actor is assumed or demanded to be free to choose among given alternatives satisfying given preferences subject to given constraints. Why, then, should homo economicus argue (van Aaken 2003)? There is no “communicative action” among the individuals that populate economic textbooks, there is only “commutative action”. Only a few, mostly “Austrian”, economists realised that the exchange of goods and services within the spontaneous order of “catallaxy” involves an exchange of knowledge, ideas, opinions, expectations, and arguments – that markets are indeed communicative networks (e.g. Hayek 1946/48; Lavoie, ed. 1991; Horwitz 1992). In fact, and this will be my major claim, market competition is more “deliberative” than politics in the sense that more information about available social problem solutions and their comparative performance, about people’s preferences, ideas and expectations is spontaneously created, disseminated and tested. This very idea is anathema for followers of Habermasian discourse ethics. The intellectual thrust and political clout of their vindication of deliberative politics critically seems to depend on a mostly tacit assumption that markets fail to address social needs and regulate social conflicts. Political discourse therefore ?steps in to fill the functional gaps when other mechanisms of social integration are overburdened? (Habermas 1996: 318). I will claim that the argument should be very much the other way around: politics and public deliberations are overburdened mechanisms – unable to deal with an increasingly complex and dynamic society. Moreover, the requisites of ideal speech communities are so enormous that functional gaps are inevitable. Partly, these gaps can be closed if market competition steps in. Partly, reorganisations of the political system are needed. Hence, I am not arguing that Habermas is wrong by stressing the need for open discourse in order to reach informed agreement among citizens who seek to realise mutual gains from joint commitment by contributing to common (public) goods and submitting to common rules of conduct (s.a. Vanberg 2003). I am challenging his neglect of capitalistic competition as a communicative device and his disdain for the classical liberal conception of bounded democracy that respects individual property rights (e.g. Habermas 1975; 1998).
2019
Denna artikel presenterar 2019 års pristagare av Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research – Boyan Jovanovic – och vilka bidrag han har gjort inom entreprenörskapsforskningen. Även om Jovanovic är en välkänd och välciterad ekonom inom akademin är måhända hans explicita bidrag inom entreprenörskapsforskningen inte lika välkända. Jovanovic har bidragit till en ökad förståelse av vem som egentligen blir entreprenör och entreprenörskapets betydelse för såväl företagsstruktur som innovationskraft och ekonomisk tillväxt.
2019
Open innovation has rendered increased interest both in practice and research, and has expanded from dyadic transfers of ideas, to ecosystem levels. Knowledge is at the heart of open innovation, and this paper describes and discusses knowledge-transfer linkages for open innovation. It does so based on a literature review. The paper links together open innovation research with general management research to categorise and discuss linkages among parties in terms of their openness and how they relate to knowledge management. Conclusions indicate that openness needs to be considered in different dimensions that also links to different knowledge management outcomes. The paper’s contribution consists of how it connects open innovation research to the general management literature, and how it builds a practical understanding of how linkages between firms can be categorised to aid firms to consider which mechanisms they may choose and why.
2019
What is the role of innovation policy for accomplishing renewal of mature industries in Western economies? Drawing upon an unusually rich dataset spanning 9752 digitized archival documents, we categorize and code decisions taken by policymakers on several levels while also mapping and quantifying the strategic activities of both entrant firms and incumbent monopolists over a decade. Our data concerns two empirical cases from Sweden during the time period 1980–1990: the financial sector and the telecommunications sector. In both industries, a combination of technological and institutional upheaval came into motion during this time period which in turn fueled the revitalization of the Swedish economy in the subsequent decades. Our findings show that Swedish policymakers in both cases consistently acted in order to promote the emergence of more competition and de novo entrant firms at the expense of established monopolies. The paper quantifies and documents this process while also highlighting several enabling conditions. In conclusion, the results indicate that successful innovation policy in mature economies is largely a matter of strategically dealing with resourceful vested interest groups, alignment of expectations, and removing resistance to industrial renewal.
