Abstract: The book is described as a collection of essays derived from papers in Industrial and Corporate Change that deal with issues lying at the intersection of the theory of the firm, industrial dynamics, and innovation. They are grouped into two parts: five focusing primarily on firms – their nature, internal organization, patterns of change, and relationships with each other, and four with relatively more emphasis on topics such as industrial dynamics, institutions, and interactions between corporate characteristics and rational determinants of competitiveness. The eight main themes of the book are described as: the understanding of firms as specific organizational forms whose behaviours and performances are largely shaped by their institutional arrangements; the analysis of organizational governance; the institutional embeddedness of organizations; the nature and degrees of path-dependency of organizational forms and competitive outcomes; comparative analysis of the ways in which different organizations manage the integration of potentially conflictual interests; organizations as learning entities; strategic discretionality versus path-dependency in corporate competences and orientations; and the co-evolution of technologies, social communities of practitioners, industrial organizations, and institutions. The contents of each essay are discussed within this framework.

Keywords: conflictual interests, corporate competences, corporate orientations, firm competitiveness, industrial dynamics, innovation, institutional arrangements, institutional embeddedness, institutions, organizational forms, organizational governance, organizations as learning entities, path-dependency, strategic discretionality, technological innovation, technologies, theory of the firm,