Abstract
This chapter distills the arguments and evidence from the previous eight chapters in this book. Adopting an approach rooted in evolutionary economics, the chapter first examines the processes of firm-level capability building that lie at the heart of the book. The chapter then moves on to consider the inter-organizational relationships that are most often associated with firm-level capability building in different contexts. Finally, the wider institutional context of the environment for innovative firms is analyzed, including the role of policy and relationships between firms and policy-makers. It is established that there exist a variety of paths to capability building and that it may not be possible to predict in advance the exact nature of a successful path or the form that it will take. However, successful paths invariably depend on the constructive co-evolution of firms and their wider environment (including the policy environment).