Exploring the Multiple Roles of Lund University in Strengthening Scania's Regional Innovation System: Towards Institutional Learning?

Universities are increasingly seen as potential contributors to regional innovative capacity by serving as local knowledge conduits, bringing global state-of-the-art science and technology into the region. In practice, however, more active university engagement with their regional innovation systems is not as straightforward as it may seem. The article uses examples from a successful case by which less successful regions could be inspired. Our analysis considers how various forms of technological learning intersecting within Lund University around three distinct sectoral engagement efforts have been built up and how this created new structural regional innovation capacity.     

REGIONAL GROWTH,INNOVATION, AND LATENT NONLINEAR EFFECTS

This paper studies the link between knowledge, innovation, and growth in European regions using nonparametric methods. Our findings suggest that knowledge inputs and the share of innovative firms have a heterogeneous and nonlinear relationship with growth. This evidence has been exploited to examine the consequences of alternative policies using a counterfactual estimation setup, the results of which imply that increasing the formal knowledge base may be optimal in most regions. Less knowledge and innovation intensive regions will also benefit from a higher innovation potential and from a trustworthy and entrepreneurial economic environment.     

ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY,KNOWLEDGE FLOWS,AND INNOVATION IN U.S. METROPOLITAN AREAS

High growth and progressive regions possess a culture that promotes innovation. Innovation depends on a region's ability to use its own existing knowledge and knowledge generated elsewhere. This paper demonstrates the importance of the ability to absorb external knowledge in explaining innovation productivity for 106 U.S. metropolitan areas. Using a spatial interaction model of patent citation flows with origin and destination dependence, the destination fixed‐effects coefficients provides a measure of a region's absorptive capacity. We identify local conditions that shape a region's absorptive capacity and demonstrate it has a positive and significant impact on innovation productivity.     

权力集中化、生产片断化与全球价值链下本土产业的升级

全球领先企业的权力集中化和生产的片断化导致价值分配的非均衡,并进一步加剧了全球生产网络中权力结构的不对称。本文提出全球价值链上的权力是一种建立在战略资源基础上的不对称的话语权,并归纳了八种基本的市场权力形式。通过对全球十大工业制成品及服务业的市场份额分析,发现技术能力和品牌能力是全球领先企业市场权力集中的主要根源,也是决定全球价值链上价值分配的决定性因素。嵌入全球价值链有利于发展中国家的本土企业迅速提高生产能力、接近全球市场和技术通道,但是从生产能力到创新能力的升级过程并非自动发生;全球价值链生产片断化带来创新过程的垂直分离和重新整合,发展中国家产业升级的关键在于本土企业的吸收能力和学习速度。     

Does Combinatorial Knowledge Lead to a Better Innovation Performance of Firms?

The knowledge base concept in the past was often applied in its “pure form”, i.e. it was assumed that there are dominant knowledge bases in particular sectors and firms shaping knowledge and innovation processes and related networks. For “analytical sectors” such as biotech, it has been argued that codified knowledge generated by universities and R&D organizations is the key for innovation, whereas “synthetic sectors” such as machinery innovate more incrementally by recombining existing knowledge often drawn from suppliers or service firms. Empirical literature has partly confirmed these patters, but also shown more complex knowledge processes. More recently it has been argued that combinations of different knowledge bases might enhance the innovation performance of firms. For example in “analytical sectors”, firms might benefit not just from new and basic knowledge generated by research, but also from recombining existing and applied knowledge or by drawing on symbolic knowledge. Combinatorial knowledge bases might also be relevant for “synthetic” and “symbolic sectors”, but in different forms. This study investigates for the ICT sector in regions of Austria if the reliance on combinatorial knowledge leads to a better innovation performance than the use of more narrow knowledge bases.     

Modeling the Impact of Technological Innovation on Environmental Efficiency: A Spatial Panel Data Approach

Technological progress has widely been acknowledged as a key driver in the achievement of environmental sustainability, and a new concern has recently arisen for assessing the role of differences in regional innovation performances with respect to the pursuit of pollution targets. We investigate the impact of innovative activities on environmental efficiency at the regional level, adopting a spatial panel data approach to account for dependence between geographical observations and to get deeper insights into spatial knowledge spillovers arising from agglomeration economies. The spatial panel analysis covers 103 Italian provinces (equivalent to NUTS3 regions) on four major air pollutants (i.e., CO₂, CH₄, NMVOC, CO) over the 1995–2010 period. Our findings show that the state of local technology development, proxied by patents, has a positive impact on GDP emission efficiency and that its magnitude is higher for more localized pollutants as a result of larger spillover effects. Finally, to analyze the Italian North-South dualism of emission levels of pollutants, we offer a spillover effect study to emphasize the remarkable difference among effects in the territory. This calls for closer attention to the local relevance of the pollution damage when environmental impact of innovation strategies is to be evaluated.     

When Innovation Does Not Pay Off: Introducing the “European Regional Paradox”

In the last few decades, innovation has been widely recognized to be the engine of wealth and prosperity as it intensifies competition and increases productivity, which both in turn lead to significant economic benefits such as higher income per capita and increased employment. However, empirical evidence in this article illustrates that innovation seems not to have paid-off for some of the most innovative regions in Europe, as these regions, despite being highly innovative, grow at a slower pace than their national counterparts, as well as presenting poor economic outcomes such as low income per capita and high unemployment rates. The aim of this article is to communicate this intriguing observation to both innovation scholars and to policy-makers, since its very existence seems to cast doubt not only on one of the most principal assumptions in the field of innovation studies (i.e. innovation as the engine of growth) but also on one of the most fundamental pillars currently underpinning several regional, national and supranational economic policies.     

互联网、产业集群与全球生产网络——新的信息和通信技术对产业空间组织的影响

新的信息和通信技术在经济发展中的作用不仅仅反映在它创造了一个新的产业部门,更重要的是它促进了知识的扩散、应用和创新。这使得信息时代的企业学习和创新过程,已经呈现出交织并存的两种模式:即在全球层次运作的跨国企业网络和在地方层次演进的企业集群网络。文章从信息和知识的角度,探讨信息时代的区域地理特征,以及信息和通信技术对产业空间组织的影响效应。重点分析全球生产网络和地方产业集群中的信息和知识过程,以及互联网技术所起的作用及其发展动态。     

多元场和集群创新：河南省神垕钧瓷文化创意产业的案例分析

通过考察多元场对钧瓷文化创意产业知识创造、流动及学习创新的影响发现：①场为主体的地理、社会及文化认知等临近等提供了条件,有助于经验意会及符号知识的获得、共享与传播,有利于思想的交流碰撞及创意萌生;②生产现场、地方关系场、地方社会场与临时性场在钧瓷的学习创新中发挥着不同而又相互补充的作用。生产场推动着集群知识积累和增进,地方关系场促进了行业知识、生产经验及家族核心知识的传播传承,地方社会场形成了地方共享知识信息,而临时场建立起外部通道联系,发挥着更新地方知识库的作用;③地方性的历史文化资源与传统以及地理-社会-文化等临近造就了外围地区文化创意经济的动力,但若未来本地知识更新的机制不够强大,则易产生发展锁定,这是需要未来引起关注的问题。     

SPATIAL DISPERSION OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION: A CASE STUDY FOR THE NETHERLANDS BY MEANS OF PARTIAL LEAST SQUARES*

ABSTRACT. In this paper the impact of spatial and nonspatial variables on the innovation potential and innovativeness of (small) industrial firms in The Netherlands will be analyzed. Innovation potential and innovativeness will be conceived as latent variables which will be measured by a partial least squares approach. The variables reflecting innovation potential are notably input variables such as internal and external R&D, while innovativeness will be based on output indicators such as the number of product and process innovations. The regional dimension enters our analysis essentially at two levels. First, we will investigate whether more innovative firms are to some extent spatially biased (i.e., on the basis of intrafirm characteristics). Secondly, we will analyze the relevance of an indigenous regional impact, per se. In other words, we will examine whether firms with an equal innovation capacity will differ in actual (i.e., realized) innovativeness as a consequence of different regional conditions. For the first issue, our results indicate that not all regions are equally well-endowed with potentially innovative (small) firms. Our analysis even demonstrates that these firms are underrepresented in regions which are generally considered to offer the most favorable production environment. After compensating for these differences in the composition of the regional set of firms, we demonstrate that an indigenous regional impact per se cannot be identified in The Netherlands.     

How Regional Innovation Systems Play a Relative Competitive Role Within Knowledge Networks

This study aims to explain how specific regional innovation systems (RISs) play relative important role in the knowledge network within European regions. EC encourages the interactions between regions and develop toward a cohesion balance. The whole Europe can be taken as a knowledge network that consists of different RISs possessing diversified resources. The existences of hierarchical relationships between different regions seem to lead us to explain whether the path toward higher-order position can be done by RISs to shape the regional competence in specific technological fields. We establish the datasets on the basis of patent data (from EPO) and REGIO database. Regional-level dataset, including 129 regions, helps to explore how different RIS develop their technological paths, and whether locational economic factors, technological conditions, and local innovativeness help RISs toward high-order position in the network. In addition, we also explore the role of the interaction of local factors for RISs in developing network position in Europe.     

Buzz,Archipelago Economies and the Future of Intermediate and Peripheral Areas in a Spiky World

In a world where large urban agglomerations are increasingly regarded by scholars and policy-makers alike as the engines of economic development, the options at the disposal of intermediate and peripheral areas are dwindling. Doing nothing is, according to the dominating theories, likely to result in a steady decline which may jeopardize their very economic viability. Adopting active measures is thus the way forward. In this paper, we argue that the main solution being proposed—interactive learning through the promotion of local agglomeration (buzz option)—may yield limited results, if at all, as it would stifle the circulation of new knowledge and lead to lock-in. By contrast, promoting interaction outside the comfort zone of geographical, cognitive, social and institutional proximity (pipeline option) is more likely to succeed in generating interactive learning and in facilitating the generation, diffusion and absorption of innovation. We illustrate this point by resorting to the case of firm innovation in Norwegian city regions.     

Knowledge-Intensive Business Services as Knowledge Intermediaries in Industrial Regions: A Comparison of the Hsinchu and Tainan Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

The literature repeatedly stresses the role of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) as a provider of knowledge and information to other businesses and organizations. KIBS simultaneously promotes, mediates and enables client innovation. This investigation mainly seeks to link KIBS to the analytical structure of concepts, including regional innovation systems, knowledge exchanges and innovation patterns. This investigation interprets the role of KIBS as that of a knowledge intermediary that mediates and transmits knowledge among actors. This study also clarifies the mechanism of knowledge exchanges in different geographic innovation systems. The analytical results obtained by this investigation are applied to analyse the intermediary functions of KIBS in various metropolitan areas in southern and northern Taiwan. This investigation demonstrates variations in how KIBS act as knowledge intermediaries, and that these variations depend mostly on industrial cluster patterns, the dominant innovation patterns at their locations and the birth of sustainable KIBS. KIBS in large/core metropolitan regions, thus, are initially based on science, technology and innovation industrial activities, and further closely resemble doing, using and interaction industrial activities. Consequently, more informal learning processes, such as local buzz and discussion/competition relations, tend to develop in such regions.     

Internet Domains and the Innovativeness of Cities/Regions--Evidence from Germany and Munich

This paper focuses on the factors determining a region's ability to produce Internet content and tries to identify relationships with the role of the same region in the national and global economy. The number of .de-domains is used to measure Internet content production, which serves as an indicator for the innovativeness of the regions in an emerging part of the service economy. Data used for the spatial distribution of .de-domains (1.2 million names at the end of 1999) is original and has not been published before. In the first part of the paper the development of the number of Internet domain names in German regions is described and independent variables to explain the spatial structure are analysed. Results show that those variables that are associated with potentials to create and commercialize new knowledge are especially suited to explain the regions' relative frequencies in domain name counts. However, no single hypothesis alone is able to explain the spatial structure of .de-domains, rather a mixture of factors indicating external economies, creation of knowledge and highly qualified labour is best. The knowledge and attitude of these individuals is crucial for the adaptation and diffusion of an innovation like the Internet. Thus, the Internet does not create new regions but it replicates, at least in Germany, the well-known ranking of regions in terms of high-tech. Concerning high-tech industries and knowledge-intensive services, Munich has stood at the top of German regions for about 15 years; this region will be analysed in the second part of the paper. Munich's national and global competitiveness depends mainly, as for other regions, on the innovativeness of its firms, research institutions, and people. The capability of Internet domain names as an indicator for regional innovativeness is the better the younger this innovation is. Despite the rather decentralized spatial structure of Germany (see the very low primacy index), compared, e.g. with the UK and France, Munich stands out in terms of the number of domain names. Munich's role in the national and global economy is supported by the early adoption of the Internet by the local firms and private users - and vice versa! If one considers the Internet as a basic innovation in the sense of Schumpeter's long wave approach then new combinations of resources in new or old regions can lead to strong national growth, but attended by increasing disparities between regions within the respective nation. We may distinguish two driving forces: the Internet as the basic innovation and the export of the respective content production to other parts of the global economy. Munich serves as a proof for the hypothesis that regions with a large potential of Internet production are also able to export these contents into other parts of the world. Zook's work on regional economic impacts of the Internet on US regions shows that regions with above-average Internet content production and marketing activities do profit significantly from the multiplicator and spin-off-effects of the related exports. Thus, although information can be distributed by the Internet in very short time to all places in the world, it nevertheless produces uneven economic landscapes (and in part manifest the old landscape) that sees the regions with strong Internet content production in a much better position than regions where the Internet consumption prevails, although this still has to be analysed for German regions.     

Innovation Governance Nexuses: Mapping Local Governments' University–Industry Relations and Specialization in High Technology in Sweden

In this paper, we take as a point of departure an assumption that innovation governance matters as a local and regional policy instrument, and consequently we investigate whether local policy can be linked to local industry. To do this, we use Swedish survey data on policy and high-tech agglomeration at the level of municipalities and present evidence on innovation governance nexuses, i.e. locations with greater industrial specialization paired with stronger formalization of innovation governance. Theoretically, this paper follows the literature on regional advantage, but a novel approach is used in which innovation governance literature is linked to that advantage. The findings indicate that these types of policy instruments are useful by creating networks that channel and direct resource and knowledge flows, particularly at locations with higher education institutions.     

Innovating in Cluster/Cluster as Innovation: The Case of the Biotechvalley Cluster Initiative

It has been noted that innovation seems to take place to a higher degree in clusters than elsewhere and we have lately seen a worldwide wave of emerging cluster initiatives and similar innovation policy projects. Some of these are realistic efforts based on existing regional strengths and partly existing cluster structures. Most, however, are grasping at straws. The latter is especially true when it comes to technologies such as IT and biotech. We could subsequently add a new label—“pathetic clusters”—to the already existing list of embryonic, emerging, world-class or stagnating clusters. But what do we make of such “pathetic clusters” (are they really pathetic)? Although economic geographers often tend to explain innovation (competitiveness) by looking at cluster dynamics, in such accounts, the cluster concept itself can actually function as an innovation, imposing similar effects on the economy as more familiar types of innovation would, i.e. by creating a local competitive edge. It is reasonable to believe that if “pathetic clusters” play important roles in regional economies, then they do so in the form of social and organizational innovations rather than as Porterian drivers of innovation and industrial dynamics on a large scale. This function of the cluster concept—as a local innovation—is the focus of the paper at hand.     

创造阶层与城市可持续发展

随着知识经济的发展和经济全球化,人才资源(人力资本)成为第一资源,以人为本,重视人力资本特别是创造型人才并发挥其创新作用,是城市可持续发展及竞争力的根源和保证。创造阶层理论为城市可持续发展发现了新道路。创造阶层的兴起将深刻地影响城市的可持续发展,中国城市应当采取措施兴起创造阶层。城市可以通过规划建设提高人居环境质量、增加城市便利性,通过制度创新扩展人的自由、提供创新的制度环境,而积累人力资本特别是兴起创造阶层,从根本上增强城市可持续发展能力。     

COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND INTERNATIONALIZATION IN REGIONAL TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS*

ABSTRACT Trade, foreign direct investment, and inter‐regional R&D spillovers facilitate competition, the spread of knowledge, and the adoption of more advanced technologies, which in turn hastens total factor productivity (TFP) growth. The spread of these efficiency gains from internationalization requires a sufficient local knowledge to enable them to be adapted to the domestic productive environment. Thus, higher local knowledge and internationalization will lead to TFP growth, and the greater the complementarity between variables the higher the TFP growth. We test the complementarity hypothesis using Spanish regional data over the period 1980–1995 in which both regional local knowledge and internationalization experienced a notable increase.     

An alternative policy approach to rural development in regions facing population decline

ABSTRACT

Many rural regions in Europe used to be characterized by weak economic performance and negative population development. While in a long-term perspective this is not any more valid for large parts of Western Europe, a number of rural regions face persistent population decline. By analysing the case of Austria, where approximately one-third of rural areas have experienced such negative population change over the past decades, this paper will examine the impact on economic performance, income levels and well-being patterns. Addressing the crucial and persistent obstacles to positive population trends, new theoretical approaches and perspectives are discussed for overcoming limitations in development. Future approaches for regional development have to go beyond strategies for targeting economic growth, but have to address issues of local participation, social innovation and establishing trust as preconditions to effectively impact well-being dimensions. Such a mobilization effort would be the result of a comprehensive social transition process which would foster an altered narrative for these rural regions compared to the current and predominant focus on compensation and growth policies. Despite strong interlinkages with other regions and actors, the needs of local people would be central and both would be a cornerstone for social innovation.     

国家可持续发展实验区研究状况及其展望

国家可持续发展实验区的建设是我国实施可持续发展战略的重要实验示范基地,自从1986年实验区创立试点以来,其相关理论和实践的研究普遍得到不同学科学者专家的关注。本文在介绍国内实验区发展概况和国外可持续社区发展特征的基础上,对我国1986-2009年间实验区研究领域的94篇学术论文进行了分类汇总,将我国该领域的研究划分为3个阶段,梳理了各阶段实验区研究的内容、方法及特点,剖析了已有研究成果的不足,并针对研究中存在的问题,探讨了未来研究的可能重点与方向,以期为我国实验区研究获得新的突破提供理论参考。