Book excerpt: This book presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the dynamics of technologies and corporate organizations over time and across countries. A general interpretation is followed by a detailed inquiry into a particular sector--chemicals--and across sections in a particular country--Italy. The empirical case studies are introduced by broad theoretical and historical sections which highlight the general characteristics of technological change in contemporary economies, the interplay between technological innovation/imitation, and economic growth. The links between technology, competitiveness, and forms of corporate organization are also examined, as are the changing boundaries between markets and activities of production and innovation internalized within corporate structures. Given this interpretative framework, economists and historians develop links between observation-based generalizations and theoretical propositions on some basic features of the evolution of technologies, industrial structures, and institutions shaping socio-economic change.