The Evolution of a New Industry: A Genealogical Approach(Innovation and Technology in the World Economy)

About the Book

The Evolution of a New Industry traces the emergence and growth of the Israeli hi-tech sector to provide a new understanding of industry evolution.

In the case of Israel, the authors reveal how the hi-tech sector built an entrepreneurial culture with a capacity to disseminate intergenerational knowledge of how to found new ventures, as well as an intricate network of support for new firms. Following the evolution of this industry from embryonic to mature, Israel Drori, Shmuel Ellis, and Zur Shapira develop a genealogical approach that relies on looking at the sector in the way that one might consider a family tree. The principles of this genealogical analysis enable them to draw attention to the dynamics of industry evolution, while relating the effects of the parent companies' initial conditions to their respective corporate genealogies and imprinting potential. The text suggests that genealogical evolution is a key mechanism for understanding the rate and extent of founding new organizations, comparable to factors such as opportunity structures, capabilities, and geographic clusters.

About the Author :
Israel Drori is Professor of Management at the College of Management, Academic Studies in Israel.

Shumuel Ellis is Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior in the Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration, Tel Aviv University.

Zur Shapira is the William Berkley Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management and Chair of the Department of Management and Organizations at the Stern School of Business, New York University.

Review :
"This book presents extremely ambitious research—well-executed and thoughtfully analyzed. It develops a novel argument that offers fresh insights about the Israeli high-technology sector while contributing to our understanding of industry evolution and entrepreneurship."—M. Diane Burton, Cornell University "Drori, Ellis, and Shapira have produced a masterful piece of scholarship. They explicate the evolutionary development of the Israeli high technology cluster at a fundamental level. We are left with a better understanding of how entrepreneurial know-how is passed from firm to firm and how the environment influences this process. This is a must read for any student of entrepreneurship and technology policy."—Brent Goldfarb, University of Maryland "Economies that have seen strikingly superior growth offer, perhaps, the most promising source of economic guidance for other nations. Israel is surely one of the most evident examples of this, and the authors' command of the pertinent information is impressive. Their book provides insights that will be invaluable to planners, other economists, and readers concerned with improving growth prospects in their own societies."—William J. Baumol, New York University, Princeton University, and author of The Microtheory of Innovative Entrepreneurship "The Israeli high-tech sector has been a remarkable global success, with more Nasdaq-listed companies than anywhere else outside of North America. This book traces the family trees of over 700 companies to nine original 'patriarchs.' It uncovers enduring family legacies in the companies' organization and practices, and reveals the fact that families rooted in the more competitive and globalized period in Israel's history, after 1977, were more entrepreneurial than those that grew up in Israel's earlier days. A fascinating take on quintessential questions facing economies today."—Jerry Davis, Ross School of Business, The University of Michigan "Zur and colleagues' examination of this fascinating phenomenon, the emergence of one of the most fruitful technology clusters in the world, is done at a level of depth and sophistication that surpasses other books in the genre I recommend this book for anyone interested in the emergence of new sectors, technology clusters, and regional identities."—Wesley D. Sine, Administrative Science Quarterly