Search results

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework for analysing wide-ranging digital transformation processes of industries in regional contexts.

The paper includes theoretical work to create a conceptual framework. The paper illustrates and advances the framework by analysing examples from two clusters, one focused on the production of digital products and services and one centred on applying digital tools to make firms’ existing activities more efficient.

The paper distinguishes between three main and interlinked categories of digitalisation; development of scientific principles that form the basis for developing digital technologies; making of digital products and services; and application of these in production and work processes. Digital transformation of industries located in particular regions relate to changes of (regional) innovation systems. The authors interpret this as processes of asset modification, distinguishing between re-use of existing assets, creation of new assets and (strategic) destruction of outdated assets. Digital transformation may lead to various forms of innovation and path development activities in regional economies.

The paper highlights the importance of modification of assets in organisations and at the level of regional innovation systems to support digitalisation. Organisations need to build absorptive capacity for digitalisation. Regional innovation systems face the challenge to build relevant common assets.

The paper advocates a comprehensive framework to better understand how digital transformation unfolds. It challenges established economic geography approaches, which propagate firm-based views and centre stage skill and technological relatedness. An alternative conceptual framework for scrutinising digital transformation processes in industries in regional contexts is presented.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to provide a tool to map the critical roles of intermediate organizations. To clarify the concept of intermediate organizations in a regional context, especially from the network dynamics point‐of‐view. Design/methodology/approach – Regional dynamics are presented as networks of production, development and innovation in the regional cluster. The intermediaries are divided into national, regional and local level actors. The roles of the intermediaries from the network dynamics point‐of‐view are then illustrated with examples from a case study in a medical technology cluster located in a sparsely inhabited area in Finland. Findings – According to the results of the case study, the regional intermediaries have the most important role in the creation and supporting of the network dynamics. The most critical roles include forming shared innovation strategies between the actors and attracting anchor tenants to the region. Research limitations/implications – The characteristics of the case region are discussed in a generic sense with the concepts of social capital and communities of practice. Practical implications – Conceptually, the article provides an approach to reducing the complexity of the regional networks to a more understandable level. The model provides a tool for the decision makers in a region to define the critical roles of the intermediaries from the network dynamics point‐of‐view. Originality/value – The novel approach introduced in this paper addresses three gaps in existing research: it helps to define the concept of an intermediary in a regional context; it shows that the intermediaries have a much broader role in a region than just knowledge transfer and that the roles of the intermediaries differ on national, regional and local levels.

The purpose of this paper is three-fold. The first objective is to contextualize and clarify the concepts of regional innovation systems and entrepreneurship, addressing their differences and complementarities and suggesting an analytical filter to enhance their understanding. The second aim is to question and analyse the challenges this renewed approach brings to the domain of territorial policy, namely, the role it may bring to local and regional development strategies, opening up the way for a set of public policy interventions on the fields of entrepreneurship and innovation promotion. Finally, the paper presents and analyses the example of Coimbra, a medium-sized city in Portugal, underlining both the role of academia and the Instituto Pedro Nunes-Incubator have had on these domains.

The paper is based on a case study approach, with an in-depth descriptive and exploratory analysis of the Coimbra entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The paper acknowledged the role entrepreneurial stakeholders have on the fertilization of the innovation and entrepreneurial Coimbra ecosystem. The Instituto Pedro Nunes-Incubator, with a new generation of startups, mostly born on its infrastructure as university spin-offs, gradually introduced a more business-oriented perspective on the local innovation system which, alongside the creation of a thicker networking and more profound cooperation culture, with the growing involvement of other local stakeholders such as science parks (Coimbra iParque), has had a decisive role on upgrading urban competitiveness. These new knowledge-based startups also have important spill-over effects that are beneficial to the growth of other firms in the same locality. There is evidence that they also provide an important Schumpeterian stimulus within economies by increasing competition, promoting innovation and augmenting the efficient allocation of resources within economies. Besides the more traditional transactional forms of support (tax incentives, grants, etc.), there is now the recognition that relational forms of support such as network building, developing connections between entrepreneurial actors, institutional alignment of priorities, fostering peer-based interactions have been strategic to improve both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

There is, thus, a need for more profound theorization and empirical research that can produce additional comprehension into this domain of the cause-effect relationships between entrepreneurship, innovation and local and regional dynamics. Some authors suggest, in particular, that the existing work on entrepreneurial ecosystems within popular business literature and academic research still has a deficit of a solid theoretical foundation, making the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach somehow both ambiguous and immature concept and, thus, reducing its generalizability and policy applicability. Research that evaluates the relationship between entrepreneurial performance and the level of government participation as part of governance systems will also be of great significance over the near future as it will help researchers and policymakers to realize better where the different stakeholders can enhance entrepreneurship and where their intervention will possibly diminish positive outcomes.

The main practical implications of this paper are associated with the need that urban and regional policymakers to formulate more business-led strategies to promote territorial innovation and entrepreneurship. The paper also offers conceptual tools that point out the need that innovation stakeholders, namely, universities, incubators and firms, have to assume more protagonism in promoting competitiveness and sustainability.

The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach constitutes both a theoretical and analytical useful tool to define competitive strategies for urban and regional economies. Urban and regional-innovation ecosystem construction is a representative method of realizing territorial development and competition enhancement, through sustainable job and wealth creation.

This paper analysis summarizes and integrates the increasing and scattered literature of both the regional innovation systems and of the entrepreneurial ecosystems and delivers new insights for the future development of this field, namely, in terms of renewal of policy formulation and implementation. The singularity of the case study is associated with the fact that Coimbra entrepreneurial ecosystem is still largely embryonic, having its roots on a paradigm strategic shift the University adopted towards a more proactive role in terms of city aand regional development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of the interface organizations of a regional innovation system on the dynamics of knowledge transfer between universities and firms.

The Triple Helix approach is used as a heuristic tool. The paper is based on a face-to-face survey to a sample of 800 innovative firms in Andalusia (Spain). The analysis focusses on the effectiveness attributed by the firms to technology transfer offices (TTOs), science parks and the regional innovation agency.

Different organizations have different roles in the relationships that firms maintain with universities in a regional innovation system. Firm’s positive perceptions of TTOs, science parks and the innovation agency in the promotion of knowledge transfer are associated to the kind of relationships maintained with universities.

The research focusses on the region of Andalusia. Further studies could consider the applicability of the findings in other regional innovation systems.

The paper helps governments and managers of TTOs, science parks and innovation agencies to understand the real use that interface organizations have for the industrial tissue of a regional innovation system.

There have been few studies that observe together the value attributed by firms to the several interface organizations in a specific innovation system. The analysis contributes to the debate on the adjustment of the different roles of interface organizations in the promotion of knowledge transfer and innovation dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role and the relevance of knowledge‐based capital as a strategic resource and a source of regional innovation capacity. The paper identifies human, relational, structural and social capital as the four main knowledge‐based categories building the knowledge‐based capital of a region. The role of each knowledge‐based category in determining regional innovation capacity is analyzed. Specifically, the authors discuss the relationships among the knowledge‐based categories and a regional innovation capacity.

The paper is based on an in‐depth literature review of the knowledge management and regional innovation research stream. The fundamental underlying research questions that have driven the research are: “What are the knowledge‐based capital categories affecting a region's innovation capacity?” and “How do knowledge‐based categories influence regional innovation capacity?”. The paper is conceptual in its nature and aims to delineate a theory‐based framework to drive further empirical research.

The paper first clarifies the concept of knowledge‐based capital and of regional innovation capacity. These are two key concepts for understanding the role and relevance of the knowledge assets bundles in the creation, development and management of innovation capabilities at regional level. Then the paper explores how knowledge‐based components affect the innovation capacity of a region. This is an issue of great relevance for both theory and practice. From the theory point of view it allows the identification of the main factors characterising the links between knowledge assets and innovation capacity, while from a practical point of view it can provide implications for policy makers for the definition of policies oriented towards the development of regional knowledge asset domains to develop regional innovation capacity.

The paper provides an answer to the need to develop a holistic view of the links between a region's knowledge‐based capital and its innovation capacity. Indeed, most of the studies in the literature have analysed the links between isolated knowledge asset categories and innovation capabilities. The paper, on the basis of a clear definition of knowledge‐based capital and innovation capacity, analyses why regional knowledge foundations make differences in the innovation capacity of regions.

The purpose of this study is shed light on the underlying forces behind entrepreneurship within a regional innovation system (RIS) in a remote rural region. The authors examine the following questions: Which are the main underlying forces behind the entrepreneurial process in a rural RIS characterized by traditionally low-tech, small-scale businesses? How can the development of a low-tech regional innovation system be conceptualized?

The design of the study is based on entrepreneurship theory. Data analysis followed practices used in phenomenography, a research approach used to analyse and identify commonalities and variations in populations' perceptions of a certain phenomenon. Data are composed using semi-structured interviews and a database composed of company information of all firms in the population.

A proactive mobilization of regional stakeholders and resources can be an important driving force behind the entrepreneurial process and generation of a rural RIS. Innovation can be generated within low-tech industries turning the rural context into an asset. An RIS in a remote rural context can be initiated and orchestrated by regional authorities, but knowledge brokering and orchestration can also be managed by networks of small-scale businesses brought together by mutual benefit and common interests.

Regional innovation systems theory is most often used to study high-tech industries. But by combining regional innovation systems with rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship context theory is a fruitful avenue to understand the role of rural entrepreneurship in regional development, even in remote and peripheral regions. Innovation does not need to entail high-tech international environments; it can appear as the result of efforts in low-tech industries in rural and remote environments. The authors’ findings need to be scrutinized; therefore, the authors call for more research on regional innovation systems in rural environments.

It is possible for regional authorities to orchestrate a development process through the actions of a strong regional agent but also by supporting the creation of networks of small businesses that are built on trust and common interests.

This study contributes to the literature with a new perspective to the study of entrepreneurship and of regional innovation systems. Entrepreneurship research with focus on rural contexts most often highlight limits to entrepreneurship and see entrepreneurship as “just running a business”. A perspective that starts from innovation and innovative behaviour, despite the rural context and embedded resources, helps to generate new knowledge that can enrich the understanding of entrepreneurship and also be the foundation for more precise business development policies in rural settings.

The literature stresses the importance of collaboration patterns and the role of public funding in regional competitiveness. This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of this subject by focusing on two key dynamics of technological cooperation. First, the authors focus on the ability of public funding to support regional technological demand through the promotion of science and technology-based innovation (STI) and innovation based on learning-by-doing, learning-by-using, learning-by-interacting (DUI) cooperation. Second, the authors investigate whether such cooperation patterns influence the companies’ ability to support the development of novel products through the effective transfer of knowledge.

The data used in this longitudinal study are taken from the Basque statistics agency’s (EUSTAT) technological innovation survey, which compiles activities, personnel, funding sources, support institutions and other innovation-related aspects of businesses in the Basque region. The survey was carried out following the methodology of the community innovation survey (CIS). CIS data are used to generate official innovation statistics for the EU and its member countries and have been used extensively for analysis in economics. The sample included an unbalanced panel of 17,431 companies that reported research and development expenditure for the period 2013‐2017.

The results of the analysis confirm that the relationship between STI cooperation and regional funding is positive (Piñeiro-Antelo and Lois-González, 2019), but regional DUI cooperation will have a greater impact than STI cooperation on a company’s ability to generate novel products. The authors can, therefore, say that public funding is successful at supporting cooperation between science and technology agents and firms but fails to promote the transfer of knowledge and subsequent development of novel products in companies in the region.

Following a quadruple helix approach, it is important to underline the need for public policies to strengthen the connections between all the key agents in the ecosystem (where the research community, industry, public sector and citizens are all active actors), promoting technology transfer and dissemination, as well as trust among the parties, absorptive capacity and business access to resources and financing. Thus, the design of public policies should be oriented to support a firm’s innovation, balancing the exploration and exploitation of STI and DUI regional cooperation.

The contribution of this research is threefold. First, it serves to emphasize the importance of the impact of regional innovation systems on business innovation modes and their performance. Second, it takes the study of innovation systems and their impact on companies a step further by examining the impact of public funding on the companies’ ability to explore and exploit regional innovation modes. Thirdly, the authors offer a dynamic view of the region’s ability to support its own demand for technology and study the impact of regional business modes on the firms’ ability to support novel products.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics of the triple helix model in less favoured regions, examining the role of three spheres: universities, firms, and government. The paper identifies profiles of behavior in terms of triple helix model performance from the firm's perspective and recognizes key factors for successful innovation dynamics in a less favored region of Portugal.

A brief bibliographic revision regarding development of the triple helix model in the innovation process is followed by a description of the role of the helixes and the presentation of a model, after which the hypotheses are defined for testing. The methodology consists of a survey involving companies in a less favored region of Portugal and the application of multivariate statistical analysis “k‐means clusters” to detect behavioral patterns in terms of performance and dynamics of the triple helix model from the firm's viewpoint. In order to verify the hypotheses, tests of multiple average differences are used to assess the unique characteristics of each cluster and the independent test of Chi‐square.

The results point to the existence of a positive relationship between the dynamics of the triple helix model in terms of different types and objectives to innovate, namely, in regards to introducing new products as well as ecological innovation and their efforts to improve communications relative to the obstacles to innovate – explicitly, the lack of information and geographical location, the companies' innovation performance, and the level of cooperation and interaction with the university producing benefits for them in obtaining additional financial resources and prestige for the researcher, as well as by obtaining information for the education process.

The paper contributes to a greater theoretical understanding of the variables influencing implementation of the triple helix model in less favoured regions. It reveals conditions associated with a more active and proactive stance and consequently better innovation dynamics and regional attractiveness.