Search results

This article focuses on regional-level cooperation in higher education by examining the functional, organizational and political approaches (FOPA) framework for higher education regionalization and using supra-national regional universities as established and successful examples of regional-level higher education cooperation among countries.

A conceptual framework is used to provide the structure for analyzing the key approaches to higher education regionalization, followed by an analysis of supra-national regional universities to demonstrate the application of the model.

The FOPA framework for higher education regionalization includes three approaches. The first is the functional approach, which includes both collaborative academic and research activities among higher education institutions as well strategies and policies to help align systems across a region. The second is the organizational approach, which focuses on networks, organizations, institutions and programs, which facilitate partnerships. The third is the political approach, which includes regional-level agreements, declarations and strategic plans to promote higher education collaboration. Key higher education activities for each approach are discussed in generic terms, with examples provided from major regions of the world.

The research was based on desk research only. No interviews were conducted.

A conceptual analysis and a model were provided for the concept of regionalization of higher education and for regional universities, which can help readers locate their interests and research in the regionalization of higher education. Examples of three different types of regional universities were provided to give concrete illustrations of a regional university.

One of the rationales driving regional universities is to address and increase a sense of regional identify and to meet the social, economic and educational needs of the specified region.

Regional universities, such as the University of West Indies, Arab Open University and the Pan-Africa University, are an understudied phenomenon. Using them as innovative and sustainable examples of higher education regional cooperation and the FOPA model, this study illustrates how single-campus, multiple-campus and virtual regional universities are functioning to meet the diversified needs and priorities across a region through cooperation among countries.

This study aims to investigate the structural characteristics, spatial evolution paths and internal driving mechanisms of the knowledge transfer (KT) network in China’s patent-intensive industries (PIIs). The authors' goal is to provide valuable insights to inform policy-making that fosters the development of relevant industries. The authors also aim to offer a fresh perspective for future spatiotemporal studies on industrial KT and innovation networks.

In this study, the authors analyze the patent transfer (PT) data of listed companies in China’s information and communication technology (ICT) industry, spanning from 2010 to 2021. The authors use social network analysis and the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) method to explore the problem of China’s PIIs KT from the perspectives of technical characteristics evolution, network and spatial evolution and internal driving mechanisms.

The results indicate that the knowledge fields involved in the PT of China’s ICT industry primarily focus on digital information transmission technology. From 2010 to 2021, the scale of the ICT industry’s KT network expanded rapidly. However, the polarization of industrial knowledge distribution is becoming more serious. QAP regression analysis shows that economic proximity and geographical proximity do not affect KT activities. The similarity of knowledge application capacity, innovation capacity and technology demand categories in various regions has a certain degree of impact on KT in the ICT industry.

The current research on PIIs mainly focuses on measuring economic contributions and innovation efficiency, but less on KT in PIIs. This study explores KT in PIIs from the perspectives of technological characteristics, network and spatial evolution. The authors propose a theoretical framework to understand the internal driving mechanisms of industrial KT networks.

Cluster management organizations (CMOs) have emerged over the past few decades as intermediaries that support the competitiveness of place-based clusters of economic activity. Despite their economic origins, policymakers are now starting to experiment with a broader use for cluster policies that seeks to leverage CMOs to tackle societal challenges in approaches aligned with the concept of creating shared value (CSV). However, there remains a void in conceptual understanding around the specific roles that CMOs might play in overcoming the barriers faced by their members for CSV, which this paper aims to address. Bridging this gap presents an opportunity for cluster practitioners and policymakers in a context in which environmental and social sustainability are at the top of policy agendas.

Based on analysis of literature around collaborative approaches to CSV for mitigating transaction costs, the authors define the contours of a new conceptual framework for the roles that CMOs can play in fostering collective CSV. The authors illustrate how the different components of the framework are reflected in emerging cluster practice in the context of a new wave of European cluster-based projects tackling CSV elements.

The resulting framework reconciles the concepts of clusters and CSV by explicitly positioning CMOs as intermediaries for facilitating the CSV strategies of their members. CMOs embrace emergent strategy making that targets (tangible and intangible) collective CSV capabilities and addresses collective CSV challenges. Collective CSV can provide a theoretical anchor guiding future cluster policies to fully leverage the transformative potential of CMOs. This conceptual framework opens a promising empirical research agenda, particularly around evaluating the plurality of impacts of CMOs.

By stressing the social impact of CMOs alongside their well-understood economic impacts, and by enabling a categorization of functions that can support the monitoring of CMO activities toward collective CSV strategies, the framework provides a novel basis for inspiring further empirical research into the evidencing of these roles.

This paper aims to investigate the cooperative governance mechanisms for personal information security, which can help enrich digital governance research and provide a reference for the formulation of protection policies for personal information security.

This paper constructs an evolutionary game model consisting of regulators, digital enterprises and consumers, which is combined with the simulation method to examine the influence of different factors on personal information protection and governance.

The results reveal seven stable equilibrium strategies for personal information security within the cooperative governance game system. The non-compliant processing of personal information by digital enterprises can damage the rights and interests of consumers. However, the combination of regulatory measures implemented by supervisory authorities and the rights protection measures enacted by consumers can effectively promote the self-regulation of digital enterprises. The reputation mechanism exerts a restricting effect on the opportunistic behaviour of the participants.

The authors focus on the regulation of digital enterprises and do not consider the involvement of malicious actors such as hackers, and the authors will continue to focus on the game when assessing the governance of malicious actors in subsequent research.

This study's results enhance digital governance research and offer a reference for developing policies that protect personal information security.

This paper builds an analytical framework for cooperative governance for personal information security, which helps to understand the decision-making behaviour and motivation of different subjects and to better address issues in the governance for personal information security.

This study aims to propose a refined dynamic network slacks-based measure (DNSBM) to evaluate the efficiency of China's regional green innovation system which consists of basic research, applied research and commercialization stages and explore the influencing factors of the stage efficiency.

A two-step procedure is employed. The first step proposes an improved DNSBM model with flexible settings of stages' input or output efficiency and uses second order cone programming (SOCP) to solve the non-linear problem. In the second step, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and Tobit models are used to explore the influencing factors of the stage efficiency. Global Dynamic Malmquist Productivity Index (GDMPI) and Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method are introduced for further discussion of the productivity change and regional differences.

On average, Chinese provincial green innovation efficiency should be improved by 24.11% to become efficient. The commercialization stage outperforms the stages of basic research and applied research. Comparisons between the proposed model and input-oriented, output-oriented and non-oriented DNSBM models show that the proposed model is more advanced because it allows some stages to have output-oriented model characteristics while the other stages have input-oriented model characteristics. The examination of the influencing factors reveals that the three stages of the green innovation system have quite diverse influencing factors. Further discussion reveals that Chinese green innovation productivity has increased by 39.85%, which is driven mainly by technology progress, and the increasing tendency of regional differences between northern and southern China should be paid attention to.

This study proposes an improved dynamic three-stage slacks-based measure (SBM) model that allows calculating output efficiency in some stages and input efficiency in the other stages with the application of SOCP approach. In order to capture productivity change, this study develops a GDMPI based on the DNSBM model. In practice, the efficiency of regional green innovation in China and the factors that influence each stage are examined.

This study aims to examine the complex effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on China’s agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) from 2005 to 2020. It also explores the role of absorptive capacity as a moderating factor during this period.

Employing provincial panel data from China, this research measures agricultural TFP using the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA)-Malmquist method. The impact of FDI on agricultural productivity is further analyzed using a nondynamic panel threshold model.

The results highlight technological progress as the main driver of agricultural TFP growth in China. Agricultural FDI (AFDI) seems to impede TFP development, whereas nonagricultural FDI (NAFDI) shows a distinct positive spillover effect. The study reveals a threshold in absorptive capacity that affects both the direct and spillover impacts of FDI. Provinces with higher absorptive capacity are less negatively impacted by AFDI and more likely to benefit from FDI spillovers (FDISs).

This study provides new insights into the intricate relationship between FDI, absorptive capacity and agricultural productivity. It underscores the importance of optimizing technological progress and research and development (R&D) to enhance agricultural productivity in China.

Competitively multipolar international system demands bilateral and multilateral partnerships. Joint innovation signals close partnerships. Regional proximity of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to the European Union (EU) defines its research and development objectives. These objectives are additionally subjected to the USA’s geopolitical strategy in this geographical area. Hence, CEE’s limited resources require limited resources make international innovation cooperation. This paper aims to analyse whether and how CEE countries make international innovation cooperation decisions.

This paper used Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) database of total patent applications filed to the patent cooperation treaty (PCT) with co-applicants from abroad, where co-patents with at least one foreign inventor present a measure of international innovation partnership. A vector autoregression analysis and impulse response function were used to analyse international innovation partnership choices of eight CEE OECD countries for the period 1990–2018.

Innovation with the EU is of collaborative nature, commonly displaying complementary properties with the rest of the examined innovation partners, while co-patenting with the Russia and China act as substitutes or complements. Co-patenting with Russia is the most versatile, displaying both properties of collaboration and competition. Some countries exhibit complementarity in co-patenting activities with multiple partners. The significance levels of these relationships vary, indicating varying degrees of impact. Overall, these findings highlight the complex dynamics of co-patenting activities and the influence of different partners on countries’ collaborative innovation strategies.

In addition to significant relationships, insignificant relationships as well as those that could bring about greater synergy are flagged in the paper. Those relationships portray possible direction into which national funds could be channelled to incite cooperation between different sectors and countries, especially as innovation partnerships are not always successful and require a long time period to materialise.

By examining bilateral innovation partnerships, this study provides an insight into the strategic political and economic spheres of influence in the CEE region.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

The digital economy has become a key force supporting the high-quality development of tourism. This paper discusses the coupling coordination relationship and spatiotemporal evolution path of digital economy and tourism in China's provinces.

This paper uses the entropy method to measure the development level of digital economy and tourism, and establishes coupling coordination model and spatial autocorrelation model to study the interaction between the two industries.

Results show that the development levels of the two industries are rising, which spatially show a progressively decreasing pattern of east-middle-northeast-west. The coupling coordination degrees of the two industries have increased steadily, but the overall level is still near maladjusted. Spatially, the positive correlation is increasing, but the incongruity of spatial agglomeration is still significant. The coupling coordination evolution path in the provinces shows differentiated characteristics. The migration path is mainly concentrated in Zones I and II. The eastern region has an obvious trend of extending to Zone III, where the tourism industry was the most affected by the pandemic.

The study helps clarify the industrial coupling and coordination relationship in various regions and formulate regional tourism digital transformation strategies to promote the high-quality development of China's tourism industry.

This paper enriches the research on the relationship between digital economy and tourism from the perspective of industrial integration. The development commonality of China's tourism digital transformation summarized provides theoretical reference and demonstration for the coordinated development of China's tourism.

This study investigates whether and how place-based industrial relocation policy affects firm innovation.

By exploiting the establishment of China's National Industrial Relocation Demonstration Zones (NIRDZs) as a quasi-natural experiment in a difference-in-differences design, the authors examine the externalities of industrial policies that support sustainable development and growth from the perspectives of firms' patenting activities.

The study consistently finds that the NIRDZs policy significantly boosts local firm innovation, translating into a 60.46% increase in the patent applications of treated firms. The estimation results remain robust to a series of alternative specifications. Moreover, heterogeneity analysis suggests that the firms that benefited most were state-owned enterprises, firms with higher productivity, or firms in non-high-tech industries. Further, the authors find that the NIRDZs policy stimulates firm innovation mainly in the form of utility model patents, followed by designs and invention patents.

The results provide suggestions and implications for policymakers to improve the efficiency of state-led industrial policies and avoid “government failure” in policy implementation.

This study provides suggestions and implications for policymakers to improve the efficiency of state-led industrial policies and avoid “government failure” in the policy implementation.

This study fills the research gap by exploiting quasi-experiments to assess the effectiveness of state-led industrial policies for emerging economies. (2) The analysis sheds empirical light on how corporate innovation is motivated and financed by selective and functional industrial policies. (3) Theoretically, the results rationalize why state-led industrial relocation fuel innovation capabilities of localities from Marshall externalities and competition crowding-out effects.