Innovation and Learning Experiences in Rapidly Developing East Asia, by Rajah Rasiah, Thiruchelvam Kanagasundram and Keun Lee (eds), London and New York: Routledge, 2012, 144 pp.

Innovation and learning are at the heart of economic growth and development. Both processes are strongly interconnected (but not identical), and are best understood as the outcome of interaction (Lundvall, 2007). While no other part of the developing world has seen more dynamism in innovation over the last three decades than the rapidly developing economies of East Asia, the progress has been somewhat uneven. Various studies have documented innovation and learning in East Asia, yet much remains to be done. Specifically, learning is a firm-specific process and must be studied at this micro level. In this respect, the book’s rich selection of industry-based national case studies represents a profound contribution to knowledge of the subject. More importantly, the book offers an explicit and bold attempt to apply an evolutionary framework (Nelson, 2008a; Nelson, 2008b; Rasiah, 2011) to phenomena other than those that have traditionally occupied scholars of innovation, learning and technical change.