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This book challenges the widely accepted notion that globalization encourages economic convergence--and, by extension, cultural homogenization--across national borders. A systematic comparison of organizational change in Argentina, South Korea, and Spain since 1950 finds that global competition forces countries to exploit their distinctive strengths, resulting in unique development trajectories. Analyzing the social, political, and economic conditions underpinning the rise of various organizational forms, Guillén shows that business groups, small enterprises, and foreign multinationals play different economic roles depending on a country's path to development. Business groups thrive when there is foreign-trade and investment protectionism and are best suited to undertake large-scale, capital-intensive activities such as automobile assembly and construction. Their growth and diversification come at the expense of smaller firms and foreign multinationals. In contrast, small and medium enterprises are best fitted to compete in knowledge-intensive activities such as component manufacturing and branded consumer goods. They prosper in the absence of restrictions on export-oriented multinationals. The book ends on an optimistic note by presenting evidence that it is possible--though not easy--for countries to break through the glass ceiling separating poor from rich. It concludes that globalization encourages economic diversity and that democracy is the form of government best suited to deal with globalization's contingencies. Against those who contend that the transition to markets must come before the transition to ballots, Guillén argues that democratization can and should precede economic modernization. This is applied economic sociology at its best--broad, topical, full of interesting political implications, and critical of the conventional wisdom.

This article examines how the legacies of the past in peripheral post-industrial places serve to shape current and future entrepreneurial activity, and with it local economic resilience. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with key regional stakeholders, the article reveals how peripheral post-industrial places are constrained by their histories. This is found to be manifest in different ways, such as low aspirations, generational unemployment and a loss of identity which are in turn compounded by negative perceptions of place and opportunity. These issues culminate in institutional hysteresis at the local level and constrain entrepreneurial ambition. The article argues that the rigidity and reproduction of informal institutions continues to stymie economic resilience and growth. We conclude by reflecting on the implications for entrepreneurship in peripheral post-industrial places as well as with recommendations for policy.

Rising productivity, alongside exploration, is the principal means by which mining can combat resource depletion. Over the past one hundred and fifty years, the mining industry has been remarkably successful in growing its productivity. However, since 2000, there are signs of a slowdown. Some aspects of this are clearly cyclical but there are increasing concerns that some of the underlying, longer term, factors which have kept productivity growing in the past are losing their force. Key amongst these factors are the physical contributions that the second industrial revolution, beginning in the late nineteenth century, brought to mining, most notably in the form of larger equipment operating in larger mines. There is much discussion in the industry around the arrival of a fourth industrial revolution and how this might ‘disrupt’ the sector and deliver a new boost to productivity through the promotion of intelligent mining but thus far there is little the evidence of such a boost. In its absence, the mining industry faces the prospect of rising costs as grades fall and waste volumes grow.

The extant literature shows that innovation emerges from an interorganizational process, where a division of labor (both exploitation and exploration related) occurs among the actors within the cluster. Clustered firms are ambidextrous when they balance innovative activities that exploit existing competencies and are open to new technological approaches through exploration. In this context, we are interested in the role of clusters as supportive structures creating an atmosphere that encourages the development of interorganizational relationships, which assume a key relevance in explaining the ambidexterity and innovation of firms within the cluster. The question is whether there is an ideal combination to compete today (exploitation) while preparing to compete tomorrow (exploration), and if the networks developed in an industrial cluster play a role on determining innovative performance. Therefore, this study contributes to deepen the knowledge about the role of ambidexterity and network clustering on innovation. Specifically, by presenting a framework that explores the influence of external stakeholders and other clustered agents in the response of ambidextrous organizations to the challenges raised by environmental changes, we extend our discussion to a higher level of abstraction showing how ambidexterity can be the “black box” that connects the entrepreneurship, management, and innovation fields. The analysis of 1467 Portuguese firms suggests that network clustering has a direct positive impact on innovative performance, but also an indirect, mediated effect through exploration. Additionally, we found that a combination of exploitation and exploration (i.e., combined ambidexterity), and the trade-off between the two dimensions (i.e., imbalanced ambidexterity), leads to better innovation in agglomeration contexts. Our results, therefore, provide evidence that ambidexterity is the key to manage innovation strategic entrepreneurship’s tensions but, the way in which they are managed, is contingent on the clustered firms’ ability or inability to simultaneously pursue both exploitation and exploration.

Integrating elements from industrial organization economics and the resource-based view—coupled with path dependence as firm resources evolve over time, this paper suggests that deregulation may not always provide greater opportunities for incumbents, and the extent to which incumbents differentiate on the green dimension may be constrained by their prior resources, in particular, capabilities with respect to brown technologies and experiences with green technologies. Using data on U.S. investor-owned electric utilities from 1992 to 2008, this paper finds that deregulation is associated with lower entry into the renewable generation market by incumbents compared to regulation. More capable firms using brown technologies, for example, coal-based generation, are less likely to enter the renewable generation market. Also, incumbents are responsive to actual, not latent, demand for renewable energy.