THE BEHAVIOR OF THE INNOVATIVE FIRM - RELATIONS TO THE ENVIRONMENT

One of the most interesting results of the ongoing theoretical debate on innovation has been to shift the focus from purely technological aspects to firms' behaviour in innovative processes, and at the same time to stress the specific and cumulative character which makes these processes (somewhat) rooted to the context in which they take place. Along this line, in this paper we will hold that innovation is a process that should be considered as a change of the environment of the innovating firm rather than somethin occurring within this environment and, more in particular, as a learning process which concerns both the firm and its environment and that results in deep changes in both of them. These propositions are meant not only as a dynamic methodological principle providing a framework for definition and classification, but to have analytical and operational implications: that is, we maintain that there is a meaningful correlation between the attitude and behaviour of the firm with respect to innovation and the way in which the firm itself considers the environment and relates to it. This correlation, as we shall see, holds with respect to several relevant issues: the way of regarding upward and downward integration, 1 the interpretation of flexibility, the role of human resource as distinct from mere manpower management, and so on. © 1990.