Change, transformation and development

Abstract

The general theme of the 8th International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society Conference, held at the University of Manchester was the exploration of economic and social dynamics in relation to the innovation process and its outcomes, broadly defined. This theme is very firmly rooted in the Schumpeterian tradition in which an economic perspective is mutually embedded in a wider awareness of the role of other disciplines. Indeed since Schumpeter’s time, the degree of specialisation within the social sciences has risen many fold, new sub disciplines continue to emerge, highly specialised theoretical tools and empirical methods continue to be developed, and new fields for the study of management and business overlap with the more traditional social sciences. Consequently, there is a need for connecting principles to offset the dangers of intellectual fragmentation. Evolutionary economics and evolutionary analysis more generally, certainly provide some of these connecting principles although much of this field remains to be developed. The central ideas of variation, selection and development, applied within the instituted frame of modern capitalism, provide a powerful set of concepts to consider the interaction between economic and other forces and to focus attention on its propensity to change and transform itself from within.