ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. This book offers an overview of the theories and research regarding economic innovation. The author discusses the possible contribution of Economic Sociology to Innovation Studies and provides some conceptual coordinates starting from the definition of economic innovation and different types of innovation. Innovation is a complex activity that comprises a series of interconnected phenomena. It involves a number of activities and transitions that scholars have often combined into phases. Change is a broader and more generic term, and refers to transformations that are not necessarily of an innovative kind. Innovation does bring change with it, but always in order to introduce something new; it involves the doing of new things or the doing of things that are already being done in a new way.
