Changing network structure in the organization of knowledge: the innovation platform in the evidence of the automobile system in Turin

This paper borrows from complexity theory insights into the transformation of network structure in order to explain the changes in how economic actors and their organizations acquire and coordinate innovative and productive capabilities. Through the illustrative evidence of organizational change that had occurred in the automobile industry in the area of Turin over the last 40 years, this paper describes how transformations in the structure of interactions between firms are steered by the modification in the pattern of specialization and differentiation in the capabilities and technological skills of economic actors. The automobile system in Turin is characterized by the emergence of a distributed innovation platform, which is seen as a major innovation in the organization of innovation and technological knowledge in the system.