Technological Innovation and Business Groups

Abstract

This handbook brings together an array of state-of-the-art research on the distinctive form of economic institution known as “business groups.” The volume seeks to strengthen both scholarly and policy-oriented understanding of the business group phenomenon, which is particularly prominent in emerging markets but also in some mature industrial economies. We see the volume making two primary and related contributions. First, the nation-focused chapters provide detailed analytical and historically grounded empirical treatments of business groups in many nations. Secondly, the cross-national subject-focused chapters offer theoretically based discussion of how those nations compare to one another and fit into a global context. The combination of these perspectives—the empirically specific with the conceptually and comparatively general—gives the volume a broad handle on the diverse and complex evolutionary paths followed by the world’s business groups.