ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the main theoretical approaches dealing with technical change, technology and knowledge. Technology in a rural peripheral context can provide opportunities for the competitive repositioning of agricultural and other types of production, while achieving objectives related to environmental concerns, or for rationalizing existing production processes by introducing new methods. Most of the debate on technology and rural areas focuses on two rather specific fields of interest: technological developments in agriculture and the impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in rural areas. The chapter argues that there are huge differences between the five countries under investigation in the level of ICT Infrastructure: Germany and to a lesser extent the UK have highly advanced ICT infrastructures while Portugal, Greece and Poland have much less developed ones. It explores how firms in rural European areas behave with regard to innovation by using both material and extensive fieldwork in five countries.
