Geography 3422A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Scientific Management, Offshoring, Optical Fiber
Document Summary
Technology is a facilitating or enabling agent. The geography of technological changes and knowledge exhibits both concentration and dispersal. Least disruptive to most disruptive: incremental innovations improving existing technology, radical innovations brick phones to iphones, changes in the technology systems. Impact on several existing parts of the economy: changes in the techno-economic paradigm it industry changing the way the world works. Different forms of innovation: product innovation, process innovation, organizational innovations enhancing products and processes, marketing innovation and brands for new and improved products. Different geographical dimensions: innovation at the global frontier new to the world, local innovation new to the firm or country. Miracles of the small inventors: air conditioning, assembly line, dna fingerprinting, personal computer, soft contact lenses, zipper. Short-term business cycles of growth and recession occur in even the wealthiest countries: kondratieff waves long economic waves. Can be found at global and national scales.