Economic and Legal Foundations of Innovative Development in the Digital Age

The digital age is a modern stage of the development of society and economy, which started with the wide use of the first digital technologies (Internet, mobile communication) and reached its peak amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution due to the dissemination of smart technologies (the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence). The digital age has the highest rate of technological progress in the entire history of industrial revolutions, which predetermines two specific features of this age. The first specific feature is as follows: unlike the previous industrial revolutions, when, despite certain companies' transition to new technologies, other companies -- due to the traditional thinking of society -- preserved the previous technological mode for a long time, the society progressed together with economy. Digital technologies transform not only the processes of production but also the processes of distribution and consumption of products. The growing demand for digital innovations is strong pressure on the market, which does not allow companies to remain aside from the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The second specific feature is that digitalization takes place in waves -- continuously and over-and-over again. This is the difference between the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the previous revolutions when the technological transition was momentary and single-step. Due to this specific feature, there emerged a hypothesis that the digital age could have not one but several industrial revolutions. Followers of this hypothesis suggest considering technological progress in the macro-scale, distinguishing the pre-digital age, which was the time of the first three industrial revolutions, and the digital age, which was opened by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Regardless of the level of the view of the digital age, it is obvious that it requires continuous, step-by-step digital innovations. This book's contribution to the literature on digital innovations is due to offering a new scientific and methodological approach to managing innovative development in the digital age. The main feature of the new approach is active, continuous, and comprehensive interaction between government, society, and entrepreneurship. The advantage of the new approach is the increase of effectiveness of state and corporate management of innovative development, as well as accelerated and well-balanced adaptation of society to the digital age. This book is aimed primarily at scholars studying digital innovations. For them, the book offers fundamental developments, empirical overview, case studies, and scientific and methodological recommendations in the sphere of innovative development of state and law, society, and economy in the digital age. Due to its multidisciplinary character, the book will also be of interest to the representatives of various humanitarian disciplines: legal, social, and economic. The book will be also of interest for practicing experts involved with the practice of corporate management and for bodies of public administration of innovative development in the digital age. For them, the book offers various issues of economic and legal regulation of innovative development in the digital age, due to which it could be a theoretical and methodological guide for improving this management.