Technological Knowledge Through the Looking Glass: Distributed Cognition and Co-Adaptation in Mesoeconomic Plexuses

Technological knowledge is commonly perceived as the principal generator of macroeconomic growth and one of the main drivers of economic competitiveness, especially in the economic setting of what is often referred to as the ‘knowledge economy’. The transition to the knowledge economy as a result of the intensified deployment of technological and scientific knowledge in the production process entails the rapid expansion of the technological frontier of the world economy and the restructuring of whole production systems, especially in the advanced industrial economies. This transition is reflected in the dramatic rise in R&D investment and human resources over the past half-century not only in the industrial economies but also in the industrializing ones. The socio-economic importance of this transition is now widely recognized by policy makers and the creation of new technological knowledge has become a priority target in the policy agendas of most OECD and of many newly industrializing countries. However, the analytical tools for understanding how technological knowledge is generated and how it affects economic processes and economic systems have not yet been fully developed. As a result of this, technological knowledge — especially in the context of neoclassical economic theory — remains a black box. Opening this black box requires the incorporation in economic theory of a formal and realistic theory of cognition by economic agents.