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Industry

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Guiding Questions

  • What is the ontological status of the term industry?

    • Is industry primarily an ontic category (a real, materially instantiated subsystem of production)?
    • An epistemic construct (a classificatory lens used for analysis, measurement, or policy)?
    • Or a strategic construct (a purposive aggregation used in planning, coordination, or intervention)?

  • Under what conditions does industry shift between ontic, epistemic, and strategic roles?

  • What are the constitutive elements of an industry (firms, technologies, skills, supply chains, institutions, standards)?

  • At what level of analysis does the concept of industry operate (firm-level aggregation, sectoral system, national productive structure, global value chain)?

  • How does the definition of an industry vary across analytical contexts (economic theory, industrial policy, national accounts, corporate strategy)?

  • What boundaries delineate one industry from another, and how stable are these boundaries over time?

  • How do technological change, organizational recomposition, and institutional evolution alter the internal coherence of an industry?

  • What is the history of the term?

  • What is the relation with the term Industry?