ABSTRACT
The primary problem of industry history is ambiguity of concept. Industry-wide organizations often transform this analytical concept into "visible" entities with their own will, interest and action. This chapter focuses on the greatest common factor of the concept. First, industry is not a concept of actual entities, but an operational concept for cognition and understanding. Second, industry is a medium level category, which is positioned somewhere between micro-level ones and macro-level ones. Third, from the perspective of micro-level economic entities, industry is a venue where competition and cooperation take places. The competition among diverse economic entities and locations can be positioned as the most important driver of globalization. Fourth, similar to the firm, the industry can be regarded as a bundle of resources. Fifth, the concept of industry has an inherently nested or multi-layered structure as a logical consequence being a "meso" level category. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
