industries. Chester Carlson of Xerox, Edwin Land of Polaroid and Bill Gates of Microsoft, are well-known cases in point. Throughout the scientific community itself there are those like Howard Schneiderman (1991, p.55), the former vice-president of research and development at Monsanto, who remain convinced that "outstanding researchers are a rare breed" and that "most seminal discoveries are made by a handful of outstanding researchers". However, many are sceptical about the critical role of rare talent in innovation, and about the existence of a distinct entrepreneurial personality. According to Drucker (1986) innovation is essentially "organised, systematic, rational work" (p.40) in which "everyone who can face up to decision making can learn to be an entrepreneur and to behave entrepreneurially" (p.65). Furthermore, Collins and Porras (1996), in their recent study of companies that have survived and thrived for more than 40 years, have found that neither great ideas nor great and charismatic individual entrepreneurs were necessary in the building and sustaining of great enterprises.While we can never discount the often dramatic role of rare talent in innovation, the indications from the literature, and from everyday empirical experience, are that such talent is not the definitive factor in any attempts to understand why some firms are consistently more innovative than others in the same sector, why some sectors are more innovative than others, or why innovative activity can vary so much across regions and countries. The literature across levels and disciplines is increasingly interested in understanding the characteristics of the institutional context that affect innovative activity and can help to explain these firm, sectoral and regional variations.One of the central issues relating institutional context with innovative activity is the question of institutional form. For example, is innovative capability related to the size of firm...
