New evidence toward solving the puzzle of innovation and inequality. The role of institutions

Systematic review of institutional innovation literature: towards a multi-level management model

“…Some key areas of interest for interventions include fostering innovative work behaviour (AlEssa and Durugbo 2021 ), and reducing barriers (Hueske and Guenther 2015 ). Using transformative policies, pro-innovation institutions also attempt to address inequality in economic systems (Biurrun 2020 ; Perry 2021 ), manage immigrant integration that boosts cultural diversity (Nyseth and Ventura López 2021 ), and confront the conflating challenges of energy development and environmental protection (Gao et al 2020 ). Yet, institutional innovation is difficult and faces unease, disagreement, and conflict due to the dynamic nature and tension between institutional persistence and innovative change (Hargadon and Douglas 2001 ).…”

“…Governmental (regulatory or policy (Costa-Font and Puig-Junoy 2007 )) innovation involves initiatives by governments that seek to confront discrepancies between the existing and attainable quality of life for citizens (Shaffer 1969 ). These discrepancies stem from issues surrounding employability, inequality in advanced economies, over-concentration of wealth for few at the top of the income distribution (Biurrun 2020 ; Fumasoli and Rossi 2021 ). Examples of policy innovations include the New Deal legislation of the 1930s that generated economic value in the form of reduced risk and increased rewards for farmers (Farrell and Runge 1983 ) and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 for supporting bankers (Ferderer 2003 ).…”

“…For some studies, inequality entrenched in long-standing institutional arrangements is a diversity management challenge for strategies to foster gender inclusivity (Krech 2020) and policies to redress social inequality and poverty (Zapata-Cantu and González 2021). More broadly, highlighted as a puzzle for management scholars, understanding the link between institutional innovation and inequality (Biurrun 2020) is a research focus accentuated by recent macroeconomic shocks due to the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 and COVID-19 pandemic. Due to these shocks and radical perturbations, some researchers (Tomizawa et al 2020;Hughes et al 2021) differ in their opinions on the role of diversity, arguing for emphasis on alternate inclusive institutional arrangements that foster inequality due to the breakdown of institutions stemming from major socio-economic and technological transformations in society.…”

“…In the management literature, the main problem for institutional innovation research remains questions on the legitimacy of institutions (Tingey and Webb 2020 ) and the necessary characteristics of novel initiatives that address socio-economic challenges such as income inequality (Biurrun 2020 ). Fittingly, there is on-going and increasing theoretical and empirical interest in the determinants of innovation (Molina-Morales and Mas-Verdu 2008 ; Li et al 2020 ).…”

Inequality in the use frequency of patent technology codes

“…Inequality is a key concept in economics [13], with a large proportion of the literature dedicated to income inequality [14,15], but also focused on wealth inequality [16,17], inequality in education [18,19,20], or inequality in productivity [21], among others, and that can be extended to other variables. In particular, within the framework of the economics of innovation, the efforts have been focused, among others, on the impact of innovation in economic growth [22], the returns to innovations [23], the technological specialization in metropolitan areas [24] or in countries [25], or the role of institutions [26]. However, to our knowledge, there are no previous efforts to measure the inequality in the use frequency of technology codes among the different patents.…”