323 Carlos Martí Sempere An evolutionary view of defence hopes of future benefits from the company.28 In other words, the company has to act within a context of risk and uncertainty. In this field of activity, the Administration and the company invest considerable sums of money. In the first instance funds employed in: defining needs, carrying out viability studies, financing specific research and development projects, evaluating the final product and integrating it with new operational procedures, in order to gain the greatest possible returns from the new means. Secondly, funds are employed to obtain a knowledge infrastructure and the technical means that will allow it to research and develop a final product with superior features. The financing of specific R&D projects and their subsequent development tends to be entire, given that the spill-over effects, that is to say, the reutilization of the technologies obtained in other sectors of the economy are not too significant. Otherwise industry would not have the necessary incentives to fine-tune the new technologies. Figure V clearly demonstrates this. In it we can see the different approximate trajectories of the cash flow of a company for a civilian and military innovation. In the first case, the company investments produce a cost that is only recovered subsequently. In other words, this private investment requires a period of time in order to achieve returns. Meanwhile, in the military sector, there are returns from the outset, once the research project is awarded, although market regulations (and the actual success of the innovation) limit the company’s economic benefits from the awarding. Figure V. Typical cash-flow in the case of civil and military innovation. Following on from our analysis of the capabilities, let us now examine how the three key elements of evolutionary economics are achieved. 28 Dosi, Giovanni, and Richard Nelson. “An introduction to evolutionary theories in economics”. Evolutionary economics, 1994: 153-172. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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