ABSTRACT
Technological co-operation, an important organisational innovation, is increasingly becoming
an integral part of industrial systems, and many firms are involved in systematic co-
operation activities aimed at generating new scientific and technological knowledge with
a view to eventual technological innovation. Recently, lots of economic literature has
been dedicated to this organisational innovation; but attention has been focused mainly on
the static analysis of the firm rather than investigating the properties of the system in
which the co-operation takes place or its evolution over time.1 Recent advances in the
economics of science and technology and the distinction between generic and localised
knowledge, can offer new ways of analysing the economic rationale behind the dynamics
of technological co-operation.
