Conclusions: Innovation as a Political Project

Abstract

This exploratory study was prompted by our reflection on the growth prospects of different territorial communities in the current globalization phase of the world economy. The new frontier of processes of growth production led by innovation and mass specialization suggested that all territories around the world could achieve growth. We reflected on the fact that what was required for the promise to be realized were many principal actors to engage in a sustained collective effort of mass specialization in those territorial communities. Indeed, innovation is purported to be the contribution of many principal actors and relatively fewer executors, because digital processes are substituting for larger numbers of workers in the manufacturing and distribution of goods and services. We defined principal actors as the economic and social innovators within civil society, together with the representative territorial institutions.