Technological Change in the German Packaging Industry: Structure, Behaviour and Performance

Abstract

Structural changes affecting entire branches of industrial activity or regions are not processes which normally occur suddenly. Due to the fact that systems and their elements are continuously evolving, human activities as well as applied techniques and technology are exposed to continuous adaptational stresses. Space and time serve as organising and linking dimensions for the individual elements of the supersysteml. There is no general theory to date on possible correlations between technical change and the spatial distribution of its actors, so it seems difficult, “…­to identify specific spatial effects, since they are interconnected within the process of changes in economic structures in a multi-faceted way, as well as interlinked to economic and political forms of regulation, and to social and cultural processes of change” (Läpple 1989, p. 219).KeywordsTechnological ChangePackaging MaterialGerman Democratic RepublicProduction ConceptPackaging SystemThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.