With the rise of automation and artificial intelligence, the companies that will succeed in the future are those who operate under a constant state of innovation. Not just that, they will often need to ensure that they pursue 'open innovation'. This book explores the contractual basis for innovation, examining the legal challenges raised by contracts to innovate. Offering a dual perspective, it takes an empirical approach to examine how agreements are structured to overcome the inherent uncertainty implicit in innovative activity. It also presents a legal framework for contracts to innovate, based on the duty of loyalty to the contractual network, which could provide guidance to navigate the uncertainty of these relationships.

Contractual networks to innovate : the search for a legal concept -- The internal coordination of the collaborative contractual network through governance of contract -- Managing the internal coordination of the network : the role of the legal doctrine and the duty of loyalty to the network -- Legal interpretation in contracts to innovate : potential matters of dispute.

Over the past few years, the global economy has suffered profound shocks that have had a marked impact on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs. While government support protected SMEs from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, new threats have emerged.

The last two decades have witnessed the growth of new forms of entrepreneurial cooperation such as dynamic networks like virtual enterprises and enterprise pools. These business forms are often hybrid, having elements of both contract-based organizations and corporate forms, in particular partnership. This book examines the relative utility of contract and partnership law in fostering and maintaining these emerging business models, focusing on dynamic networks. The book analyses how dynamic networks are organized and set up through, very often, collaborative contracts and how the behaviour of their member firms is regulated. Good faith and fair dealing as a behavioural criterion in contractual and partnership relations, is an important theme of this work. The background and preconditions for the emergence and growth of such business forms is also investigated. The book contains case studies of such networks from different countries in particular Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England and Norway. It examines relevant legal rules in a number of jurisdictions such as England, Norway, Germany, Italy, France and the US. This detailed book will appeal to postgraduate students and academics in the fields of contract law, comparative law, partnership law and business/commercial law. Academics in other disciplines such as economics, sociology and business management will also find much to interest them in this study.

Public sector innovation is important because the pressures of growing expectations from citizens, budget crunches, and a surge of complex governance problems cannot be solved by standard government solutions or increased funding. In order to innovate, government increasingly needs to collaborate with networks of partners across agency boundaries and especially with the nonprofit and private sectors to find new solutions. This interaction within a network can enhance creative and effective governance solutions. In this book, Jacob Torfing closely examines the link between network-based collaborative governance and innovation, proposes a framework for the study of collaborative innovation, and discusses this approach in light of theoretical insights from other disciplines and from examples of public innovation drawn from the United States, Europe, and Australia. This book will move scholars closer to being able to develop a theory of collaborative innovation.

'This book represents a significant step towards dealing with the lacuna constituted by the inadequacy of the literature on the services. And, as such, it approaches its task from a variety of directions.' From the foreword by William J. Baumol, New York University, US 'The Handbook of Innovation and Services is an exceptional volume. Its contributors, including Faïz Gallouj, William Baumol, Jean Gadrey, and Pascal Petit, are among the major thinkers in both the fields of the economics of services and the economics of innovation. Selected topics include the "cost disease", services innovation in the global economy, social innovation in the services, and innovation and employment in services. The book, I am sure, will become a standard reference volume in both these fields in the ensuing years.' Edward Wolff, New York University, US This Handbook brings together 49 international specialists to address an issue of increasing importance for the world's post-industrial economies; innovation as it relates to services. Contemporary economies have two fundamental characteristics. Firstly, they are service economies in as much as services account for more than 70 per cent of the wealth and jobs in most developed countries. Secondly, they are innovation economies as recent decades have seen an unprecedented development of scientific, technological, organisational and social innovations. This Handbook expertly links these two major characteristics in order to investigate the role of innovation in services, an issue that until now has been inadequately explored and one that poses many theoretical and operational challenges. This comprehensive volume encompasses the views of eminent scholars from a range of disciplines including economics, management, sociology and geography, and draws on a number of different analytical and methodological perspectives. With its multi-disciplinary approach this Handbook will be an invaluable reference source for academics and students in the fields of economics, management and the geography of services and innovation. Public authorities and managers in the service sector will also find this book fascinating.

Since the start of the recent financial crisis, as most global firms struggle to remain competitive, an increasing number of Korean and Japanese firms have experienced an amazing rate of growth and expansion. Although academic researchers and business leaders in the United States, China, Brazil, India, and Europe seek out the secrets to these busin