National innovation systems, 'real economies' and instituted processes

The design of institutions, policies and units of analysis are all predicated upon the ways in which we see the world and explain change. Today, as the pace of change quickens due to technological advancement and growing technoeconomic interdependencies in a series of processes generally referred to as 'globalization', analytic frameworks which emphasize 'national systems' have emerged to provide a unit of analysis through which to 'explain' these changes and growing interactions. These frameworks have the allure of trying to incorporate the ways in which economies, markets and economic agents actually behave - with particular reference to innovation, knowledge, learning and institutions. Our purpose in this paper is to raise some questions about the importance of these frameworks from a policy (managerial) and analytic perspective, to outline some limitations of their utility, and to suggest some useful paths for investigation.