1. Placing Knowledge ; 2. Economics of Knowledge Reconsidered ; 3. The Firm as a Locus of Competence Building ; 4. Practices of Knowing ; 5. Spaces of Knowing ; 6. Communities and Governance of Knowledge ; 7. Public Policy Implications

`This book is, in my opinion, a real tour de force. It convincingly assembles together the most advanced research in different disciplines: economics, science and technology studies, cognitive sciences (including situated and distributed cognition), and management science. It is one of the first systematic attempts to find a common thread between these disciplines... The book develops a framework that allows each theoretical approach its own niche. Neither syncretism, nor eclecticism, but a real integration.' Professor Michel Callon, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris, author of The Laws of the Markets, (Blackwell Publishing, 1998) `Imaginatively interweaving competence-based theory of the firm with recent advances in the sociology and geography of learning, Amin and Cohendet unfold a fascinating perspective on innovation.' Gernot Grabher, Professor of Economic Geography, University of Bonn `Amin and Cohendet confront the burgeoning tropics of knowledge research and cultivate a garden. Their expanse is broad, yet linear, tracing the development of knowledge within communities that span firms within prescribed spatial boundaries. A stimulating account that challenges individualist notions of the knowledge economy.' Bruce Kogut, Professor, INSEAD

Proposes a new approach combining economic and sociological methods. Tackles major questions of policy at both a corporate and national level. An accessible synthesis of the main approaches to knowledge. Develops the concept of communities of practice.

Ash Amin is Professor of Geography at Durham University. He has held Fellowships and Visiting Professorships at the Universities of Naples, Venice, Bologna, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Uppsala. He is a founding co-editor of the Review of International Political Economy and co-editor of Cities. He was Member of the Steering Committee of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) from its foundation in 1989 to 1999. He was member of the Economic and Social Research Council's Research Priorities Board from 1997 to 2001. He is an academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. His research interests lie in the fields of urban and regional development, the geography of the post-mass production economy, spatialities of globalisation, governance alternatives to market and hierarchy, urban democracy and the multicultural city, the geography of the social economy, and the cultural economy. Patrick Cohendet is Professor of Economics at University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg, France. He has held Fellowships and Visiting Professorships at the Universities of UVA (Charlottesville, Virginia, USA), Toyo (Tokyo, Japan), and HEC-Montréal (Canada). He is one of the co-founders and members of BETA (Bureau d'économie théorique et appliquée), a research group in economics and management of the University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg. He is member of the commitee of national research (CNRS) in economics and management. He was Member of CADAS (comité d'applications de l'académie des sciences ) from 1989 to 1999. His research interests lie in the fields of economics of innovation, economics of knowledge, theory of the firm, theory of decision, industrial organization and research policy.

Proposes a new approach combining economic and sociological methods. Tackles major questions of policy at both a corporate and national level. An accessible synthesis of the main approaches to knowledge. Develops the concept of communities of practice.