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The purpose of this paper is to examine the way in which the UK Labour Government “framed” the policy and practice debate on social enterprise, the way in which “strategic” networks were (or were not) facilitated and the extent to which scale and geography shaped policy choices after 1997.

The paper examines three phases of development through a series of examples/case studies all of which are based in the West Midlands in the UK. The paper draws upon the author's practice and experience as both a practitioner and researcher during this period. Interviews with other key individuals are undertaken to inform the author's reflections and analysis.

The paper suggests that there is a risk that experience, knowledge and understanding are at risk as there seems to be poorly developed processes and systems to “capture” informed understanding and that the importance of regional networks to promote practice and to protect innovation are often poorly developed and supported.

The paper is timely given the renewed focus by political parties in the UK on the role of the third sector in providing the “solution” for a number of public sector initiatives.

The paper cuts across both the literature/debate on public policy as well as that on the role of networks and decision making within informal (as well as formal) organisations.

The paper is timely and will add to an awareness of policy choices and the importance of sustaining a “memory” of past (and current) programmes.

Clusters and networks have become cornerstones of regional development efforts. This paper discusses the ability of regional strategic networks (RSN) to bring about cluster effects and how structural factors will affect performance of RSNs.

The paper compares structural aspects of prosperous clusters, as identified in cluster theory, with characteristics of RSNs. A theoretical discussion is supplemented with a study of two Swedish cases with structurally different settings.

It is found that membership in a RSN may increase the competitiveness of individual firms and thereby also have a positive impact on regional competitiveness. However, a RSN cannot fully reproduce or create cluster conditions. The main outcome in the cases concerned visibility aspects of firm membership.

Network initiators and coordinators will benefit from awareness of implications for outcomes caused by the member composition of RSNs.

By analyzing and comparing cluster characteristics with characteristics of RSNs, this paper develops these concepts and analyzes the influence of member composition on expected membership outcomes in RSNs.

This paper aims to contribute by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the inter-relatedness of business goals among firms in strategic networks by exploring the following research question: How do different business goals coexist in networks? When joining a strategic network, firms are likely to pursue goals of self–interest, as well as those of collective interests. Goal formulation and joint network activities provide vital information toward investigating how firms utilize their network for the purpose of accessing, capturing and integrating the efforts of others to achieve their own goals.

The empirical basis is a case study of a strategic network of food producers in Denmark. Twenty qualitative face-to-face interviews with strategic network member firms constitute the empirical data that are analyzed using the software Leximancer.

This research combines the goal formulation and business of a single firm with the collective and joint effort of a strategic network to help broaden our knowledge of how different goals and strategies coexist in networks. A typology of business goals in networks is developed. Appellations of “Achievers”, “Wishers” and “Harvesters” help to characterize the different types of goal formulation strategies in these networks.

It is not appropriate to make statistical generalizations based upon this study.

This research aims to contribute by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the inter-relatedness of formulated goals, choices and interactions among firms in a strategic network context.

Drawing on the experience of the Observatories, a set of interconnected research centers in Italy, this chapter explains why academics are in one of the best positions to orchestrate interorganizational initiatives of change and development, and highlights two prerequisites that appear necessary to render salient this orchestrator role of academics: (i) the extensive use of multiple approaches of collaborative research and (ii) the creation and maintenance of a platform allowing the management and diffusion of the network-based learning mechanisms underlying each change and development effort. The contributions extend existing knowledge on organization development and collaborative research.

The purpose of this paper is to study how actors in a network for regional development perceive the network by addressing the questions of what characterizes a network for regional development and why the actors participate in such a network.

The study focussed on using networking for regional development in Sweden, utilizing a qualitative method with a hermeneutic approach.

Regional development requires the inclusion of a participatory multi-actor process, involving a diversity of societal stakeholders. A network for regional development entails hierarchy, and may be characterized by dominance. The informal character of networks for regional development creates vagueness, and might lead to unclear results, in the end affecting the function of the network. Leadership is crucial for the outcome of networks for regional development, but leadership is challenging in the absence of formal decision making and a controlling structure.

As this was an intra-case study, generalization of the findings and conducting a cross-case analysis were not feasible.

The attributes of a network for regional development, i.e. hierarchy and dominance, constitute problems that need to be solved. The informal character of a network may create vagueness, making it difficult to produce tangible results. Hence it is vital to discuss results from different angles. An effective network requires a process leader who promotes trust and mutuality, and pushes the network in the desired direction.

The present paper integrated research on network for regional development with general network theory, offering a better understanding of a topic in which research is relatively limited.

The importance of government policies in the formation and development of strategic networks has been widely recognized. Many countries have designed specific government policies with the aim to support network creation. However, the influence of these different government policies on the development process of strategic networks has never been considered so far. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how different government policies influence the development process of strategic networks.

This research uses a multiple case study design with a descriptive and processual case study approach. The study compares two strategic networks where different government policies have been implemented: on the one hand, policies aimed to promote networking through the support of trade association and the design of specific laws; on the other hand, public policies providing financial support for network development.

The comparative analysis of two networks shows how the different activities along the development process are carried out based on the different support received, and it highlights that financing network creation and exerting a control function is not enough to stimulate network development and sustain its success.

Considering the limited generalizability of this exploratory study because of the analysis of two cases, future studies with a larger number of strategic networks can expand the understanding of the effects of different types of public support for network development.

The results contribute to make entrepreneurs and public bodies aware of the importance of a managerial support to strategic networks’ development. The authors provide a series of evidences to academics and practitioners regarding how the development process of strategic networks may be shaped depending on the different government support they receive.

The value of this contribution lies in demonstrating the influence of different government policies in the development process of strategic networks, which has not been investigated yet, despite the great attention governments are devoting to networking.

The purpose of this paper is to model the impact of structural factors and activities on commitment in a regional strategic network (RSN) context.

A longitudinal case study examines two regional strategic networks acting in different business areas in mid Sweden.

Competition‐neutral, social, and personal goals were found to be powerful drivers promoting shared values and commitment among competitors, whereas business‐related goals worked well for complementary firms, providing a more stable basis for network commitment. In the RSN with a large number of members, sensitivity to absence was low, but it took longer for members to get to know one another, slowing commitment development. The RSN including members with complementary resources proved a more favorable setting than did the RSN including competitors, and frequent activities that favored social relationship development increased commitment.

This study identifies important factors influencing the development of commitment in network contexts, but is limited to two cases. The topic merits further research: other factors need consideration, and the factors discussed here should be evaluated in other contexts.

The impact on network commitment of the factors discussed here needs to be considered by RSN initiators and hubs.

Few studies treat commitment in RSN contexts. This paper addresses this deficit by identifying structural factors and activities that influence commitment development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of personal and inter-firm networks and the elements that contribute to the formation and management of these networks for regional small businesses.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 small business owners located in regional areas.

The findings highlight key characteristics of regional small business owners’ networks. Findings indicated that participants relied strongly on their personal networks for business purposes. This study shows that while personal networks adapted and changed into informal inter-firm networks, weak-tie relations within inter-firm networks were unlikely to develop into close personal networks. Novel findings also include a preference for “regional interactions” and included regular collaboration with local business competitors. Although the participants used social media to manage their business through personal networks, results confirmed there was a lack of awareness of the benefits of inter-firm networks with businesses outside the local region.

While it is acknowledged small business owners use personal and inter-firm connections to maintain and grow their business, there is a lack of research examining both of these networks in the same study. This research addresses this gap and presents five propositions as a useful direction for future research. This paper adds to the evolution of existing knowledge by expanding understanding of the formation of business networks and conditions of business trust relations within a regional context.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework combining the approaches of the innovation pedagogy, strategic planning of higher education and the research, development and innovation (RDI) in order to support the export of higher education.

The export of education can be included in the framework by taking the innovation pedagogy as a starting point – an approach developed for the universities of applied sciences with the emphasis of efficient leaning in projects and the institution's external impact. Strategic management defines strategic objectives, which take into account the European education policy and the regional and international demand for higher education. The empirical part of the paper is based on the study of the Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) focusing on the networked applied research and development activities and the combination of the education and the RDI activities using learning in the projects approaches.

The building of the strategic partnerships seems to be one of the main instruments of the export process and to use the support of the external broker organization outside of the universities. The advantages of the student learning in the RDI projects are: the drop‐out rates can be decreased, the length of study can be shortened, the transfer of knowledge can be increased, the supervision of students can be increased, the experience of students from projects increases the employment opportunities and the integrated model of innovation pedagogy can be exported to other countries.

The framework presented in the paper could be developed towards mechanisms of sharing the knowledge concerning different global learning ecosystems.

The paper aims to illuminate the platform created by a cluster organization to facilitate its internationalization and thereby enhance its regional innovation system partners' competitiveness by providing access to global value chains and boosting innovativeness.

The study draws upon the interaction approach, focusing on the interaction process, interaction partners, relationship atmosphere, and relationship environment. A qualitative study was conducted at Future Position X, a Swedish cluster organization. A total of 58 interviews were conducted, including 48 face-to-face in-depth interviews between 2017 and 2019 with six key informants at FPX, representatives from 28 SMEs, ten members of regional innovation systems to which FPX belongs, and four process leaders of regional and local networks, in addition to online interviews with ten members of the regional innovation systems conducted via Microsoft Teams in March 2021. The time span of the study provides a longitudinal perspective.

The FPX cluster collaborates with actors in the quadruple helix, maintaining a mindset that has led to a number of new partner agreements in the global arena to secure the resources and expertise necessary for cluster activities, and thereby ensuring firms in FPX networks access to platforms for international expansion. Internationalization thus expands the cluster's knowledge base beyond the traditional environment of its member firms.

Very few innovations arise from the isolated work of a lone genius. Instead, most innovation is achieved through complex, interactive, iterative and cumulative learning processes in which a variety of actors are involved. The FPX cluster organization's internationalization platform is therefore vital to the internationalization of its partners since cluster actors lack the time, resources, knowledge, experience, and networks required to break into international markets singlehandedly.

This study suggests that, for practitioners and researchers alike, the growing importance and relevance of the regional innovation system cannot be overemphasized. It also holds policy and societal implications in that FPX's global network helps regional SMEs to internationalize, in addition to inspiring international firms to establish operations in the Gävleborg region, thereby helping to strengthen the overall GIS environment. Internationalization also expands the FPX cluster's knowledge base beyond the traditional environment of its firms, an example of this being the construction start of a Microsoft data centre in the region in 2020.

FPX is financed through taxation and grant funding. By initiating projects, creating relationships and building collaborations, FPX thus contributes to collaboration between business, academia and the public sector. FPX also contributes to knowledge development of new technology by creating meeting places and networks around digital issues, such as GIS, AI, the IoT and blockchain technology.

While earlier research has concentrated on endogenous gaps critical to cluster dynamics, comparatively little attention has been paid to exogenous gaps, i.e. linkages between regional clusters and innovation partners elsewhere in the world. This study showcases the richness of interactions in the cluster against the background of wider, global innovation interactions. Future research should examine other vital questions that remain unanswered, e.g. by measuring and exploring the extent to which regional innovation systems can contribute to long-term economic growth for society.