Innovation,knowledge and relations – on the role of clusters for firms’ innovativeness

ABSTRACT

For more than two decades, theories on regional clusters have inspired economic and structural policies at the European, national and regional levels. Based on the assumption that clusters generate innovation, policy-makers at all levels of governance have adopted instruments and mechanisms to stimulate, resource and sustain clusters. Despite the considerable attention paid to the clustering phenomenon, empirical evidence on to what extent firms’ innovation activities benefit from operating in clusters is scarce and inconclusive. This paper contributes to the micro-foundation of clustering effects by examining the characteristics and activities of cluster firms in relation to their innovativeness. Bridging innovation, management and cluster theories, it is argued that structural and relational embeddedness, relational capital and absorptive capacity influence clustered firms' innovativeness. Partial least-squares structural equation modelling of data from 104 firms in two software and information technology service sector clusters reveals that firms’ structural embeddedness (i.e. frequency of interactions) in clusters and external networks facilitates innovation cooperation. Firms’ absorptive capacity reinforces this positive effect of cluster-internal interactions on innovation cooperation. Results also suggest a substitution effect of trust as relational control mechanisms for formal control mechanisms within the cluster. However, the study finds no significant impact of firms’ innovation cooperation within the cluster (i.e. relational embeddedness) on their innovation success.     

High-tech development and spatial planning: comparing the Netherlands and Taiwan from an institutional perspective

High-tech development has been broadly accepted as a prominent matter of regional development policies and plans at the global level. Strategies to enhance it have evident implications for spatial planning policies, plans and visions. Consequently, careful attention should be paid to the role that spatial planning policies play in the national and regional efforts to advance high-tech development in a particular place. This study addresses the relationship between the spatial planning system and high-tech development, searching to explain the spatial implications resulting from this relationship. It approaches the topic by comparing high-tech development experiences in the Netherlands and Taiwan from an institutional perspective. Although both countries have used a range of spatial strategies for economic growth through high-tech development, the results show that their different institutional settings, power relations between different levels of government and conceptions of science park have led to the implementation of two very distinct spatial strategies, shaping different spatial patterns of high-tech development clustering in these two regions. The findings demonstrate the potential of the institutional approach to study international planning issues, and contribute to theories of high-tech development and spatial planning.     

嵌入、认同、责任：地方社区中的旅游小企业

围绕旅游小企业根植于地方社区的社会理性本质,本文借助嵌入理论探讨旅游小企业经济活动背后社会责任行为的成因。研究发现：①旅游小企业主的地方认同对企业社会责任行为有着显著的正向影响;②旅游小企业主的社区嵌入对地方认同有着显著的正向影响;③旅游小企业主的地方认同在社区嵌入对企业社会责任影响中扮演着显著的中介作用;④旅游小企业主的地方身份特征在社区嵌入对地方认同的影响中起着显著的调节作用,社区嵌入中获得更多社会资源的外来小企业主比本地小企业主对地方认同的影响更强。本文揭示了旅游小企业社会责任的地方空间特征,形成了地理学人—地关系研究的新方向,并为社区嵌入管理和商业环境塑造等工作提供了实践启示和建议。     

The Effects of Exogenous Shocks on the Development of Regional Innovation Systems

Drawing on previous studies related to the evolutionary aspects of regional innovation systems (RIS), this paper examines how an exogenous shock reduced organizational thinness, fragmentation and lock-in and thereby facilitated path creation and RIS emergence in a peripheral region. A longitudinal case study approach, based on primary data from 39 interviews conducted between 2008 and 2012, is used to investigate how a region was affected by the sudden entry and subsequent activity of a multinational oil company. A multi-level analysis illustrates how this exogenous shock facilitated change at the firm, public authority and macro (regional) levels and thus provides a holistic understanding of the complex mechanisms that underlie regional transformation. The analysis illustrates how the entry of the oil company reduced organizational thinness by stimulating the establishment of external firms. The existing regional actors then managed to reduce their organizational lock-in by adapting their skills and resource bases to new knowledge provided through interfirm relationships (reduced fragmentation), and this reduced organizational lock-in and fragmentation ultimately strengthened the industrial structure and further contributed to regional path creation. A number of innovations were observed, and in combination with the “thickened” institutional structure, this represented the means for an emerging RIS.     

Structural ways to embed a research laboratory into the company: A comparison between Philips and General Electric 1900-1940

This paper compares the Philips Research Department and the Research Laboratory of the American company General Electric (GE). 1 It argues that it is, above all, the issue of the organization of industrial research, appropriate leadership and the embeddedness of a research department in the company as a whole that is important for an historical analysis of an industrial research department. The complex structures that Gilles Holst (the first Philips research director) and Willis Whitney (the GE research director during the first decades of the twentieth century) set up in their organizations enabled scientists to keep in touch with the resources provided by the universities, and made it possible for them to come up with articles, patents and devices for their respective companies. It enabled them also to strengthen their contacts inside and outside the laboratory's walls. However, more than his colleague Whitney at GE, Holst at Philips intended to integrate the research laboratory into the company as a whole. Holst's policy as a research director will be illustrated using the case of Philips' radio research. A comparative discussion of industrial research in the 1930s within both companies shows that the "successful" integration of research activities is context-dependent.     

A River is a River-Cross-Border Networking Between Baden and Alsace

Using the concepts of national and regional innovation systems as an analytical framework for analysing the cross-border networking activities between Baden and Alsace, the empirical analysis presented in this paper reveals that despite the political promotion of cross-border relations the reality in innovation networking looks different. In the industry sample used for empirical analysis, no firm in Baden had research contacts with an Alsatian research institute, while at least 7% of the Alsatian firms cooperated with research and transfer institutes in Baden. Although spatial distance does not matter, cultural and institutional distance does. The neighbouring region is not looked at as a significant knowledge source for firms in both regions. Despite technological and economic internationalization, for many firms innovation-relevant learning still takes place mainly within their own national and regional system of innovation. For the two regions under review, the Rhine is still a cultural and institutional barrier which needs more networking bridges to be crossed.     

制度厚实、制度空间与区域发展

1990年代以来,经济地理学愈来愈多地开始倾向于用制度和社会文化因素来解释区域经济发展。本文回顾了西方制度取向经济地理学的理论背景及其主要研究内容,并在探讨制度厚实和制度空间的理念及其与区域发展关系的基础上,探讨了西方制度经济地理学的研究发现及其不足。本文认为,对于制度转型时期的大国-中国而言,倘能将包涵尺度特征与制度套叠变化的制度空间理念纳入到大规模制度变迁与中国区域经济发展的理论框架中,将有助于深化对中国区域空间差异的解释能力。     

The Significance of Networking and Company Size in the Level of Creativeness of Tourism Companies: Antalya Case

The importance of creativeness and networking in the attainment of global competitiveness has been emphasized in local development literature. The level of creativeness of a company is influenced by its level of networking at both global and local levels, as well as its “institutional thickness”. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of local, global and associational networking, as well as company size, in the contribution of tourism companies to the level of their creativeness. Following a different approach from previous research, this paper addresses the tourism dimension of networking and creativeness not only to tourism but also to local development literature by providing empirical evidence and employing a quantitative method of analysis based on a firm-level survey. The findings of the paper reveal that there is a relationship not only between the associational and global levels of networking and creativeness, but also between the size of a tourism company and its level of creativeness. Based on these findings, this paper emphasizes the need of a tourism company to develop networks at global levels in particular, but also at local and associational levels, to develop creative practices and to facilitate the sustainable development of tourism regions.     

Universities and regional advantage: Higher education and innovation policies in English regions

This paper examines the links developing between universities and their regions as observed in the UK. It highlights interactions between public policy and institutional behaviour in a multi-level governance (MLG) structure at sub-national, national and European levels. Different strategic processes of networking between universities and the developing links with the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in nine English regions are illustrated, in light of the recent government policies which influence the resources and strategies of universities. Universities' wide range of activities and strategies at different geographical levels need to be strategically incorporated as part of regional innovation systems.     

Women and Peace Building: Local Perspectives on Opportunities and Barriers

The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 has made strong provisions to include women in peace‐building interventions and actions. This is, however, rarely observed in practice beyond local‐level activities. This article discusses new qualitative evidence on the opportunities and barriers to women's participation in peace‐building processes, based on a comparative analysis of case studies conducted in Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal and Sierra Leone. The findings show that women's engagement in peace‐building activities, beyond their immediate social relations, is restricted by institutional, economic, cultural and social obstacles. These barriers prevent the realization of gender equality objectives in peace‐building initiatives. Moreover, local understandings of peace typically place family relations at the centre of how women engage with peace‐building processes, and how other community members perceive women's roles in peace building.     

Expanding Women's Co-operatives in China through Institutional Linkages

This article examines the institutional linkages between three women workers' co-operatives, the first women's credit co-operative in China, and the co-operative support organization, the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (ICCIC). The study shows that Chinese women in rural areas have increasingly adopted co-operatives as a form of organization in their efforts to address the problem of their lack of access to resources, including land, credit, jobs, training and information, and to participate in the mainstream economy as an organized force. This article demonstrates that stronger institutional linkages between local offices of the All-China Women's Federation and the ICCIC encourage the growth of women's co-operative activities. It raises two sets of policy issues that are central to the development of co-operatives and women's banking: the continued growth of these activities will depend upon the government adopting legislation to define the legal framework governing co-operative relations and management systems, and establishing gender-inclusive policies to increase credit to women's income-generating activities.     

The limits to China's non-interference foreign policy: pro-state interventionism and the rescaling of economic governance

China's foreign policy has been long committed to a principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries. While one could easily point out past and present-day inconsistencies in its implementation, this article argues that defenders and critics of the principle both rely on a limited interpretation of ‘interference’ or ‘intervention’ based on an ideology of Westphalian sovereignty. Particularly problematic is the conceptual distinction between the ‘political’ or ‘diplomatic’, on the one hand, and the ‘economic’, on the other. As Polanyi's concept of embeddedness reminds us, markets, society and politics occur simultaneously, and can only act as discrete realms in epistemological abstractions. It is thus argued that non-interference is a semi-formal institution that governs China's diplomatic engagements and affects its economic activities. While the totality of China's interactions with the world has diverse and sometimes contradictory impacts on global governance, non-interference itself has apparent consequences for the rescaling of regional economic governance. Specifically, this article contends that Chinese non-interference results in the empowerment of political elites at national levels, and thus in the (re-)emergence of the nation state as a gatekeeper and facilitator of the advancement of capitalist enterprises. As a result, through non-intervention, China's foreign policy undermines supranational regulatory approaches and fosters state-based regional architectures.     

民族互嵌视野下的畲族海外移民研究——基于浙南文成侨乡的田野调查

论文以浙南侨乡文成县为田野调查点,基于畲汉民族互嵌的视角,分析了文成畲族海外移民的历史背景、动力机制、发展现状,阐释了侨乡畲族海外移民的时代意义。浙江文成县畲族海外移民既是中国改革开放的时代产物,也是文成县侨乡文化强烈辐射和畲族与汉族良性互动的结果。其深层动因则源于文成畲汉民族关系由形式上的互嵌向结构性的互嵌之顺利转型。文成畲族海外移民案例,标志着畲族历史变迁中的时代飞跃,有利于缩小畲汉发展结构性差异和增强畲汉民族关系的和谐,对当今畲族乡村振兴和畲汉民族关系发展亦具有重要启迪意义。     

跨国公司地方嵌入新视角:基于地方劳工市场的研究进展与理论思考

20世纪90年代以来,跨国公司地方嵌入研究相对聚焦于资本密集型或技术密集型企业,而需要大量非熟练工人的劳动密集型跨国企业并未引起足够关注,建立在产业联系、技术外溢、社会网络等核心概念基础上的跨国公司地方嵌入分析框架很显然不能很好地解释劳动密集型跨国公司地方嵌入的理论与实践问题。在劳工地理学、新经济地理学等学科背景下,基于全球生产网络、关系嵌入、空间修复等核心概念,研究分别从劳工能动性的空间尺度、跨国公司地方嵌入的劳工要素、劳工管控对跨国公司的地方嵌入、区域劳工景观的空间修复等视角出发,系统梳理相关研究进展并提出未来主要研究议题,包括如何识别劳工供需因素对跨国公司地方嵌入的影响机制,如何剖析特殊劳工管控体制下劳工空间实践与能动性的关系,如何刻画跨国公司地方嵌入对区域劳工经济地理景观的影响,如何总结跨国公司地方嵌入与区域发展的战略耦合模式等。     

Cultures of Economies: Gender and socio-spatial change in Nepal

This article contributes to ongoing debates animating geography today about the boundaries between 'economy' and 'culture' and their implication for policy planning. It explores the mutual embeddedness of culture and economy through an ethnographic analysis of the interrelationships between spatial practices, economic strategies and gendered symbols of status in Nepal. The fine-grained ethnographic analysis presented here is intended specifically to challenge 'best practice' approaches accompanying the recent 'discoveries' within economic geography about the significance of culture in determining and promoting regional competitiveness and in presenting alternatives to capitalism. The article draws particularly on the practice theory of Pierre Bourdieu to reveal how local 'economics of practice' in Nepal establish and maintain gendered ideologies that structure material opportunities differentially for men and women. Feminist geography, meanwhile, contributes a spatial dimension to practice theories, important for understanding the relationship between individual consciousness, action, and social change. Throughout, the article reflects on the implications of processes of cultural production considered here for the epistemological frames within which development takes place.     

From regional innovation systems to local innovation systems: Evidence from Italian industrial districts

The theoretical concepts of industrial district and regional innovation system though closely related, capture different aspects of regional economic development. Given the “nestedness” of a system in other systems, one regional innovation system can support several districts. However, in some cases, districts may be considered as local innovation systems with independent innovation patterns. In fact, the socio-economic characters of industrial districts can be so specific that the region's size and institutional framework may be inadequate in fully describing their innovation processes. In the case of the Italian region of Lombardy, this “autonomous” local innovation system model proliferates.     

Explaining Institutional Effectiveness in Australian Environmental Management: An Application of the Haas,Keohane and Levy Model

In their Institutions for the Earth (1993), Haas, Keohane and Levy argue that, at the international level, three fundamental conditions must be met for the effective management of environmental problems. They summarise these conditions as the three 'Cs'-the building of concern; the existence of a suitable contractual environment; and the growth of state capacity. We applied the Haas, Keohane and Levy (HKL) model to three case studies at the national level, in order to ascertain the extent to which the three Cs explained the emergence of successful institutional regimes. We found that two of the three variablesimprovements to the contractual environment and increases in state capacity-had considerable explanatory power. Concern was important in providing the motive force for change, but high levels of concern did not lead to effective institutional regimes unless the other two factors were present. We found a strong reciprocal relationship between state capacity and the contractual environment-the ability to monitor solutions and to generate policy-relevant 'trustable' information, was positively associated with improved negotiating structures and outcomes.     

Women,Place and Practice in Vanuatu: a View from Ambae

This paper discusses the relationship between people and place in Vanuatu, focusing on the relationship between women and place. The paper draws on ethnographic data from the island of Ambae, arguing that practice mediates the relationship between people and place, and, in the new context of the nation, has become a way of demonstrating a person's affiliation to place. In contemporary Vanuatu, kastom mediates and expresses place-based identity. Landholding and land-use are aspects of the practice of a place. The fact that a person's identity is tied to their place raises issues for the identity and status of women, who move at marriage to their husband's place. It remains the case, however that at marriage a woman becomes identified as a person of her husband's place, no matter whether she lives there or not. Ni-Vanuatu women see their capacity to move and resettle in this way as a strength, a capacity of which they can be proud, and for which men respect them. The growth of urban centres since Independence is bringing new presssures to bear on the relationship between people, practice and place.     

Smart specialization as a strategy to develop early-stage regional innovation systems

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the role of smart specialization in catalyzing the development of early-stage regional innovation systems in less advanced regions, either by facilitating the emergence of some defining elements that were lacking or accelerating the development of others, such as: a regional knowledge base and a dynamic learning process, institutional structures, network integration mechanisms among key innovation actors, regional industrial specializations, and collective identities. The paper exemplifies this process with the case of Romania, a country where the research and innovation system is centralized at national level and regional innovation systems are in the early days. The transformations taking place in the Romanian regions within the process of implementing smart specialization, assisted by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in the project “Targeted Support to Smart Specialization in Romania”, suggest a dynamic coagulation of institutional, financial, policy, and human factors that catalyzed the development of regional innovation systems in the country and introduced a novel approach to innovation policy.     

Central Asian and Russian perspectives on China's strategic emergence

This article employs fieldwork research and literature analysis to examine contemporary perceptions of China's emergence in popular and elite opinion in Russia and the Central Asian states, particularly Kazakhstan. It initially establishes a framework for understanding China's emergence, emphasizing a trilateral dynamic between the hegemonic position of the US in Asia, the evolution of the strategic choices of China's neighbours and the development of strategic regionalism as a mechanism for managing regional spaces. Choosing to take the Commonwealth of Independent States as a particular case of this framework, it argues that the interaction between Russia, China and the US remains highly fluid, particularly under the conditions ‘of re‐setting’ the US‐Russian relationship. This means that regional contexts are highly significant; and it establishes Central Asia as an important new strategic region for working out relations between Russia, China, and the US through their interactions with regional states. The second part of the article examines Russian and Central Asian responses to China's emergence. It looks at three categories of motivation in China's regionalism: its system for accumulative growth; its problems with weak constitutionality and transnational security in its western regions; and its concern with US/NATO encroachment on its western frontier and the US attempt to turn Central Asian elites away from their traditional alignments. The third part looks at China's promotion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as its mechanism for strategic regionalism in Central Asia. The article questions the SCO's significance in terms of its capacity for governance and functionalism, and points to the problem of institutional competition, notably with Moscow's preferred structure of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The article concludes that China will be an unconventional superpower that presents different facets of itself in different regional contexts. There will not be a single model of China's emergence and it will continue to develop its international role through a mix of adaptation and experimentation. However, China's strategy will pose a problem for Russia and Central Asia since it seeks to create a strategic space that does not challenge the West, but exists substantially outside the West. Russia, in particular, has to decide whether it will be able to maintain its current stance of independence between Europe and Asia as China's rise shifts the frontiers between East and West.