LEI & BRICK(University of Torino – Collegio Carlo Alberto)

Fondation France – Japon de l’EHESS(Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)

Goethe Universität(Frankfurt am Main)
AND

GREDEG(Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion), Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis & CNRSInternational conference

Understanding the emergence of new industries.
Between path dependency and path plasticity
To be held at the University of Torino
Department of Economics & Collegio Carlo Alberto
7th and 8th October 20101

Call for papers
Why and how do new industries emerge? Some studies have focused on thisquestion, but so far no consensual view can be characterized on how the process of
emergence of new industries starts and develops. This is all the more surprising sinceeconomic development all times has been essentially nurtured by the emergence of
new industries. In the last two decades, new industries like software and biotechnology
have contributed to a large extent to the economic growth of modern economies, andwe expect further growth stimuli by new industries like nanotechnology or next
generation robotics.
This conference focuses on the process of emerging new industries. In ourunderstanding this process takes place between path dependency and path plasticity.
Path dependency refers to the stability of configurations in given systems and the moreor less stable way how these configurations incentivize the innovative behaviors ofactors, while the concept of path plasticity refers to the variety of configurations in thesesystems.
At the same time, the concept of ‘new industry’ requires some clarification
especially if one needs to structure empirical work since this concept often assumes thatsectors emerge from nothing. However, from the late 1970s a number of important
industry sectors emerged as a result of certain radical innovation, which substantiallychanged the path of former sectors and their rebirth into new ones, becoming
eventually sub-industries of former sectoral categories. These processes are often
differently influenced depending on the respective institutional setting.
The purpose of this conference is to gather papers which contribute to theunderstanding of the emergence of new industries, the role of innovation systems inwhich they are embedded and the role of path dependency. In the end thisconference aims at reaching a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of thelogic of emerging industries. Therefore it is necessary to employ different theoreticalperspectives and a variety of research methodologies. To this end, we invite
contributions from different disciplines, which focus on one or more of the following
issues:••••••

The conditions under which new industries emerge;
The respective roles of incumbent and new firms in the emergence of newindustries;
Role of technological and organizational regularities in the emergence ofnew industries;
The role of institutions, knowledge stocks and demand in the emergenceof new industries;
The various degrees of impact of given structures on innovative activities
and their creative interpretation by entrepreneurs for the emergence ofnew industries;
Cognitive processes and mechanisms under which actors recognize
opportunities for the emergence of new industries.

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Keynotes
David Audretsch (Max Planck Institute of Economics – Jena, & Indiana University)
Hiroyuki Odagiri (Hitotsubashi University)
Kenneth L. Simons (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)Jörg Sydow (Freie Universität, Berlin)

Organisation and Scientific CommitteesOrganisation Committee (by alphabetical order)
Cristiano Antonelli (University of Turin)Jackie Krafft (CNRS-GREDEG)
Sébastien Lechevalier (EHESS)Francesco Quatraro (University of Turin, Brick Collegio Carlo Alberto)
Cornelia Storz (University of Frankfurt)

Scientific Committee (by alphabetical order)
Björn Asheim (University of Lund)
Cristiano Antonelli (University of Turin)David Audretsch (Max Planck Institute of Economics – Jena, & Indiana University)
Michel Callon (Ecole des Mines)
Steven Casper (Keck Graduate Institute/ Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Dominique Foray (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
Dietmar Harhoff (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)Jackie Krafft (CNRS-GREDEG)
Sébastien Lechevalier (EHESS)Franco Malerba (Università Bocconi)Francesco Quatraro (University of Turin, Brick Collegio Carlo Alberto)
Cornelia Storz (University of Frankfurt)
Simone Strambach (University of Marburg)
Jörg Sydow (Freie Universität, Berlin)
Nick Von Tunzelmann (University of Sussex, SPRU)
Seiichiro Yonekura (Hitotsubashi University, IIR)

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Submissions
Full papers should be submitted by e-mail at brick@carloalberto.org. Each submitted
paper should indicate the e-mail and physical address of the contact author, and amajor field of interest chosen in the list above. Further information will be available at:

http://www.carloalberto.org/brick.html

Deadlines
Submissions of full papers or long abstracts (3 pages – 1800 words): January 30, 2010.
Notification of acceptance: March 30, 2010.
Submission of full papers: September 1st

Registration fees
Registration fees are 200 euros, and include access to conference, coffee breaks,
lunches, and conference dinner.

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