Innovation networks in economics: from the incentive‐based to the knowledge‐based approaches

Innovation networks have become a persistent organisational phenomenon in industrial innovation processes. However, in economics they were considered in the first place only as a temporary hybrid phenomenon between markets and a hierarchical organisation within a single firm. The main focus of traditional neo‐classical analysis simply was on cost reduction of R&D within a network. Only with the coming up of evolutionary economics with its prevailing knowledge orientation, learning and synergistic partnering also move to the centre of interest. Without a consideration of the roles strong uncertainty, heterogeneity as well as the historical character of time play in innovation, networks cannot be explained as a self‐organisational persistent phenomenon. The present paper brings together different strands of the new theory of innovation and develops an evolutionary theory of innovation networks.