Instituciones, innovación y transferencia de conocimiento: contribuciones de los estudios sobre las variedades del capitalismo

Abstract

"This article is an interpretation of the theories about the varieties of capitalism, highlighting their implications for innovation, especially for the processes of knowledge transfer between universities and businesses. Studies of the varieties of capitalism point to the importance of the institutional architecture for the competitiveness of countries. The debate highlights the institutional complementarities as a useful concept in theoretical terms to explain the processes of development and need to anchor institutional analysis on empirical data. These approaches are relevant to frame important theoretical studies on innovation, where knowledge transfer processes are considered one of the essential impetus for innovation. The article provides a critical review of three approaches to varieties of capitalism: the pioneering study of Hall and Soskice, the business systems of Whitley and the approach to governance of Amable and Boyer. Corollaries that can connect to processes of knowledge transfer are extracted for each approach. The conclusions indicate that the focus of attention to the company should be complemented with a systemic approach, to show the wide range of actors, where the university becomes one of the most important. Government intervention is essential in shaping an innovative behaviour of the actors, to encourage and promote the use of different mechanisms of knowledge transfer."