INNOVATION IN AGRIBUSINESS

The market for technology plays a crucial role in firms' technology strategy as a way to undertake search in the available technological space. Drawing on innovation search theory and the literatures on licensing and absorptive capacity (AC) we address the issue of the factors that affect how technologically distant from the existing technological portfolio in-licensing firms are able to move when they in-license externally developed technologies. We posit that a long technological distance reflects the outcome of more exploratory search, while a short distance reflects the outcome of exploitative search. We conjecture two distinct dimensions of AC in terms of the firms' stock of knowledge ("assimilation capacity") and the degree to which firms have searched broadly in the past ("monitoring ability") to affect the distance of exploration from the existing technological portfolio. Furthermore, we compare firms that explore through licensing and firms which do not explore through licensing, but do so through search reflected in own patenting activities. We propose that the effects of assimilation capacity and monitoring ability should be more pronounced for licensees. Combining data on 176 license agreements and related patent information and while using a control sample of non-licensing firms we find-with exceptions-support for these ideas.

 The relationship between property rights and development has always been a central concern for both theorists and policy makers. The growing role of information and communications technology in the economies of both North and South intensifies the salience of this issue. This commentary extends the discussion of the two visions of property rights that are introduced by Weber and Bussell (2005). In one, property rights are restructured along the lines pioneered by the open-source software community to create a "new commons" of productive tools; in the other, Northern corporations successfully defend their politically protected monopoly rights over intangible assets and even extend them through a "second enclosure movement" to an ever larger set of ideas, information, and images. Currently, the second enclosure movement remains dominant, but which of these visions is likely to predominate in the longer run depends on the interests and potential power of key actors and on the possibilities for alliances among them-not just Northern corporations, but Southern states and private entrepreneurs, as well.

The provision of food is undergoing radical transformations throughout the global community. Peter Oosterveer argues that, as a consequence, conventional national governmental regulations can no longer adequately respond to existing and emerging food risks and to environmental concerns. This book examines these challenges. Translating recent innovative thinking in the social sciences - as seen in the work of Manuel Castells and John Urry amongst others - to the world of food, this book reviews the challenges facing global food governance and the innovative regulatory arrangements that are being introduced by different governments, NGOs and private companies. The analysis includes case-studies on the European BSE crisis, GM-food regulation, salmon and shrimp farming and food labelling. The author highlights how contemporary governance arrangements also have to acknowledge increasing consumer demand for food produced with care for the environment, animal welfare and social justice. Developing and implementing adequate global food governance arrangements therefore demands the active involvement of private firms, consumers, and civil society organisations with national governments. Peter Oosterveer's book will appeal to scholars - postgraduate and above - involved in industrial organization, agricultural studies and environmental sciences as well as those with an interest in the globalisation and governance of this important and topical area.