Regional economic resilience (RER) remains the state-of-the-art concept in economic geography to investigate regional development in times of disturbance. We seek to contribute to a transformative ...notion of RER, which unfolds in light of global environmental change. In our review of conceptual and empirical RER applications, we reveal three unresolved issues: a focus on firms rather than diverse actors, trivial reflections on social–ecological interdependencies, and the need for more fluid understandings of socio-spatial relations. Based on these insights from neighboring geographical disciplines, we provide concrete propositions for theoretical enhancement to make RER fit for purpose.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The unpredictable impacts of sudden shocks such as the current COVID-19 pandemic or the current energy crisis accelerated by the Russia-Ukraine war have led to a renewed interest in regional economic ...resilience. Much of the literature focuses attention on how regional economies and industries could bounce back, that is, how they could return to their pre-shock conditions. Other scholars have proposed to construe resilience as bouncing forward to capture the mechanisms and processes that underpin positive adaptation and structural change in response to an acute crisis. In this article, we argue that both conceptualisations do not consider shocks and crises as a window of opportunity for regional economies to transform into a radically different and more desirable trajectory. We bring a new perspective into play, that is, transformative resilience which places shifts towards more sustainable pathways centre stage. This understanding of regional economic resilience acknowledges that a crisis may bring about permanent structural change and considers to what extent these transformations are to the benefit of society and the environment. This article seeks to identify in a conceptual way what factors and dynamics are vital for enhancing the transformative resilience of regions. To this end, we draw on recent insights from the debate on challenge-oriented regional innovation systems and elaborate on the role of pre-shock conditions and various core processes in building up regional transformative resilience.
This article contributes to a better understanding of how heterogeneous innovation system actors shape green industrial path development. Previous research has identified various forces of stability ...that reside within place-specific and non-local innovation system structures and advanced our understanding of the role of change agency in rearranging these structures to facilitate green transitions. Failures to reconfigure innovation systems have received limited attention so far. Drawing on recent insights into the role of maintenance agency, we cast light on how powerful actors undertake strategic interventions to prevent rearrangements of innovation systems from happening. Our empirical analysis of the emerging bioplastics path in the region of Lower Austria reveals how resistive incumbents from the fossil-based plastics industry, academia and support organisations preserve historically grown system configurations that favour the old unsustainable industry and create barriers to the consolidation of the bioplastics path.
Trippl M. Scientific mobility and knowledge transfer at the interregional and intraregional level, Regional Studies. The aim of this paper is to explore the extent and nature of knowledge flows which ...result from the international mobility of elite scientists. Based on the findings from a worldwide survey of 'star scientists' (that is, authors of highly cited journal articles in different research areas), it is shown that these top researchers establish manifold interregional knowledge links between their sending and receiving areas and embed themselves in their location of choice by creating connections to regional actors. Furthermore, the paper identifies a set of crucial factors that determine whether or not star scientists engage in intraregional knowledge transfer activities.
This article examines the nature and geography of knowledge linkages in the Vienna software cluster. Empirical studies on the software sector have provided contradictory evidence of the relative ...importance of different sources of knowledge, the spatial dimension of exchanges of knowledge, and the relevance of different channels for the transmission of knowledge. Recent conceptual work on the geography of knowledge linkages has highlighted that the innovative dynamics of clusters rests on both local and global knowledge flows, that is, the combination of "local buzz" and "global pipelines." However, the buzz-and-pipelines approach fails to provide a precise understanding of the mechanisms by which actors in a cluster gain access to knowledge at different spatial scales. This article goes beyond the buzz-and-pipelines concept and suggests a differentiated typology of knowledge linkages, distinguishing among market relations, formal networks, spillovers, and informal networks. Drawing on a survey of firms and face-to-face interviews with representatives of companies, we demonstrate that in the Vienna software industry, knowledge flows are informal. We found that spillovers and informal networks are highly significant at all spatial scales and are complemented by formalized research-and-development partnerships at the local and national levels. We also show that the character of knowledge linkages is dependent on the nature of innovation. The more radical the innovation, the larger the variety of sources of knowledge and the stronger the diversity of the mechanisms for transferring knowledge.
The aim of this article is to explore how new industrial paths emerge and grow in peripheral regional economies. Current conceptualizations of regional path development are based on experiences from ...core regions and fail to provide satisfactory theoretical explanations of new path-creating activities in peripheral areas. Our conceptual approach combines the notions of path development and knowledge bases, enabling us to distinguish between an analytic and a synthetic route of path creation. We argue that due emphasis should be given to exogenous sources of new path development and policy actions in order to understand how analytical and synthetic routes unfold in peripheral regions. These factors are still underappreciated in prevailing models of path creation. The article contains an analysis of the emergence and evolution of new industries in two peripheral regions in Norway and Austria: the electronics and software industry in Arendal-Grimstad in southeastern Norway, and the software industry in Mühlviertel in Upper Austria. The two industries have developed differently: through the synthetic route based on the emergence and restructuring of manufacturing firms in Arendal-Grimstad and through the analytical route building on the establishment of research facilities in Mühlviertel. Our analysis suggests that the inflow of new analytical and synthetic knowledge from exogenous sources and various types of policy interventions have been vital in sparking the formation of new industrial paths in both regions. The findings clearly challenge uniform, narrowly conceptualized models of industrial evolution and support recent work that advocates a broader theoretical framework to capture exogenously led and policy-supported path-creation processes.
Path creation is a key concept in economic geography. So far, particularly scholars within evolutionary economic geography have pioneered research on this topic. This paper critically discusses their ...work and proposes a broader understanding of how new economic activities emerge in regions, which is referred to here as 'new regional industrial path development'. The paper develops a future research agenda, which stresses the need to develop a multi-actor and multi-scalar approach, to integrate the future into analyses of path development, and to offer a broader view on inter-path relations.
Innovation in space Isaksen, Arne; Trippl, Michaela
Oxford review of economic policy,
01/2017, Letnik:
33, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article casts light on the increasingly complex geography of innovation and knowledge sourcing activities. We argue that the spatial patterns of learning and knowledge exchange vary ...substantially across different types of regions and industries. The article elucidates such variations by combining three analytical approaches, namely, (i) modes of innovation (differentiating between science-technology-innovation (STI) and doing-using-interacting (DUI) modes), (ii) regional innovation systems (distinguishing between organizationally thick and diversified, thick and specialized, and thin systems), and (iii) types of knowledge linkages that connect actors during the innovation process. We explore in detail the key characteristics of the spatial architectures of innovation and knowledge flows in STI and DUI industries located in regional innovation systems with varying degrees of organizational thickness and specialization. We also discuss empirical examples documented in the extant literature to illustrate our arguments on how innovation and knowledge circulation unfold in space in various territorial and industrial contexts.
The role of exogenous sources of new path development has been underplayed in the literature on regional industrial change so far. The aim of this article is to explore in a conceptual way under ...which conditions and in what ways non-local knowledge can lead to new path development in different regional innovation systems (RISs). We distinguish between organizationally thick and diversified RISs, thick and specialized RISs and thin RISs and argue that these types vary substantially in their needs for exogenous sources as well as in their capacities to attract and absorb knowledge generated elsewhere.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Recent research has challenged the urban bias in economic geography and innovation studies, showing that highly innovative and competitive firms are also located in peripheral regions. So far, ...however, analyses has focused on how firms innovate despite their unfavourable location and little has been said about the innovation benefits of peripheral areas. Hence, this article identifies different compensation and exploitation strategies adopted by firms in order to overcome regional innovation constraints and to reap innovation benefits found in the periphery. Drawing on 20 in‐depth qualitative interviews with innovative firms situated in the Austrian periphery, our analysis reveals that innovation in peripheral regions is the outcome of a combination of compensation and exploitation practices. The uptake and composition of these strategies depend on the firm and regional characteristics, with firm size being the most influential factor.
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