This original and timely book presents the most comprehensive, empirically based analysis of clustering dynamics in the high-technology sector across liberal and co-ordinated market economies.
International contributors provide the first examination of the growing subject of regional knowledge-economy development. Illustrated by data and 'stylized' accounts, the international contributors chart the evolution of knowledge economies, questioning the way in which they work and criticize accepted theories and inform how places can cope in the knowledge economy. Based in concept on Cooke's Knowledge Economies (Routledge, 2002), Regional Development in the Knowledge Economy is a well-grounded work exploring this increasingly important theme with relevance to innovation systems and related economic development literature.
Aiming to contribute to the better understanding of theories and practices associated with knowledge regions, this book will appeal to a wide ranging audience, including regional and industrial economists, innovation scientists, academics and practitioners with an interest in knowledge and management organisation, regional scientists, economic geographers, and economic sociologists.
The acquisition and management of information is central to the operation and marketing of many service-providing firms and other organizations. Their varied knowledge requirements influence approaches to organizational structure, relationships to other organizations, the location of operations, and entry into new markets. In this book, an international and interdisciplinary team of leading scholars examines the attributes of knowledge acquisition and diffusion within and across service-providing organizations. Using a variety of case examples, they pay particular attention to the processes of internationalization and the ways in which service-providing organizations affect regional economic development.
'Charlie Karlsson, Börje Johansson and Roger R. Stough have collected a set of important articles on some of the most important factors determining the growth of contemporary regional economies. the focus of the book is on important growth determinants that are almost never mentioned in the standard analyses of economic growth. Entrepreneurship is discussed from theoretical as well as empirical points of view. the role of social capital as well as institutional governance are highlighted in chapters that ought to be read by all economists interested in the economic growth and development of regions.' – Åke E. Andersson, Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping, Sweden 'This is an exceptional work that is the result of an outstanding selection of the best papers on agglomeration and innovation given at the 10th anniversary of the Udevalla conference. It is the finest set of conference papers I have seen in the past 25 years. These are artfully woven together into three primary areas. the first focuses on the role of knowledge and innovation in entrepreneurship, the second incorporates the institutional environment, while the third looks at the international context. I recommend this collection to academics, students and all who are interested in the role of creativity and innovation in entrepreneurial development. Not only are these the very best researchers in the field, but the materials are presented in a clear and concise manner, making it an outstanding base for advanced courses in this area. This work combines some of the best writings by top-notch authors sharing the sharpest insight into the complex area of the role of human capital in structuring agglomerative advantages. I take my hat off to the fine editorial work represented in this volume.' – Kingsley E. Haynes, George Mason University, US 'The book provides a remarkable contribution on the role of human capital as major creator of knowledge, interpreted as abilities, capabilities, methods, creativity and persistency in identifying and solving problems by collecting, selecting, interpreting and applying existing knowledge and information. the laws of increasing returns to human capital – among which are urban agglomerations as magnets which attract persons who embody knowledge – are conceptually searched and empirically verified. the book answers questions such as: Why do highly educated people, i.e. the carriers of human capital, tend to concentrate in large agglomerations?; What are the agglomerative forces?; and How does this agglomeration of human capital impact different types of economic activities and in particular their location behaviour? Important normative implications are thus derived from such a collected effort.' – Roberta Capello, Politecnico di Milano, Italy 'The Regional Economics of Knowledge and Talent, edited by Charlie Karlsson, Börje Johansson and Roger R. Stough brings together a wide range of cutting-edge studies and research on the role of talent in regional development. It is an important addition to our understanding of how knowledge, human capital, and talent shape the development of cities and regions across the globe.' – Richard Florida, University of Toronto, Canada This original and instructive new book defines and explores the concept of knowledge as the talent, skills, know-how and understanding embodied in individuals. the distinguished contributors advance the current research frontier in three novel directions which focus on: the role of human capital and talent for creativity, entrepreneurship and regional development; the role of institutions for the behaviour of firms and entrepreneurs; and the influence of the global context on the location, export and innovation behaviour of firms in a knowledge economy. They also address critical questions that underpin the emerging knowledge economy: • Why does human capital and talent tend to agglomerate in large urban regions? • How does this agglomeration affect the location of different types of economic activities? • How does this agglomeration affect regional growth? Presenting the state of the art in the field of knowledge economics, this book will prove a stimulating and challenging read for scholars and researchers with an interest in economics, business and management, and regional and urban studies.
Knowledge has in recent years become a key driver for growth of regions and nations. This volume empirically investigates the emergence of the knowledge economy in the late 20th century from a regional point of view. It first deals with the theoretical background for understanding the knowledge economy, with knowledge spillovers and development externalities. It then examines aspects of the relationship between knowledge inputs and innovative outputs in the information, computer and telecommunications sector (ICT) of the economy at the regional level. Case studies focusing on a wide variety of sectors, countries and regions finally illustrate important regional innovation issues.
Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: Innovation is essential for the competitiveness of companies within the globalised knowledge economy. In the actual situation of high unemployment rates in most western countries public economy support works thereby actively on the improvement of innovation activity conditions. The regional level is for this attempt the most interesting spatial entity because of its high significance in global economic mechanisms. The questions motivating this master thesis are how regional innovation policy can improve a regional innovation system and which of the possible policy instruments the most effective ones are to combat unemployment. Innovations are the new combination of recent or established knowledge, whose implementation had a noticeable effect on the performance of the organisation, it was implemented in. This includes product, process, organisational and people innovations. Innovations are not anymore an individual effort but a process which involves many actors and institutions. The basis for the exploration of how to support the development and implementation of these innovations is the regional innovation system approach. It divides the innovation process into phases and their linkages and allows identifying analytically the evolved actors and the weaknesses of the innovation process. The analysis of innovation policy instruments assigns each weakness within the innovation process an instrument which is explained and analysed in detail. The examined instruments are competence centres, start-up centres, science parks, networks, regional knowledge management and diffusion agencies. Each instrument s function and its main characteristics get described together with a best practice example, which leads to a conclusion on its effects on innovation and employment. The result of the analysis is that competence centres, start-up centres and science parks are central instruments and have the highest potential for employment effects. Networks, regional knowledge management and diffusion agencies are more supporting measures that improve the performance of the first three. For the success of all instruments, their combination with each other and the utilisation of synergies and dependencies between them is essential. A holistic concept including all instruments is the most effective way to support regional innovation processes. These findings get transferred to the case study region Bonn where, as an example for an [...]
This book begins with a theoretical examination of regional innovation systems, agglomeration economics and knowledge spillovers, before going on to examine the same concepts within an empirical framework. Special emphasis is given to the importance of proximity in the formation of regional innovation systems. It concludes by considering innovation and human capital as determinants of regional economic growth. The concept of knowledge spillovers is used within the book to explain a number of major economic phenomena, including the geographical clustering of inventions; the social returns to R&D that significantly exceed private returns; and the sizeable disproportions that exist between firms in terms of their R&D inputs and outputs. The contributors identify that small firms are responsible for far more product innovations than large firms relative to their measurable knowledge resources. The book also stresses the importance of a catch-up mechanism that sees technological improvement as the combination of two distinct types of activity: innovation and imitation. In this way, the impact of human capital and other types of knowledge acquisition on economic growth is measured. The conclusions of the contributors are invaluably oriented to policy implications. This book will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students of regional science and innovation and knowledge, as well as policymakers.
In recent decades urban regions around the world have engaged in a new process of development based on the creation of new knowledge. Amidst the globalization of economic activities and the arrival of transformative technologies, knowledge has become the key driver of competitiveness and is profoundly reshaping the patterns of economic growth and activity. This book offers a comprehensive new model of the rise of a Knowledge Economy and its evolutionary development in the Megalopolis. These regions are developing new institutions and governance mechanisms to adapt, disseminate, and utilize available knowledge to promote continuing development of their Knowledge Economies. However, such developments are accompanied by increasing inequalities in incomes and in urban services. This book examines the resilience of some urban regions and their recent emergence as vibrant Knowledge Economies. It also reviews the recent renewal and growth in the Megalopolis-- stretching along the Atlantic Seaboard along the metropolitan areas of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC. This book will appeal to researchers and professionals interested in urban and regional development, and to business groups interested in economic development.
This book presents new evidence concerning the influential role of context and institutions on the relations between knowledge, innovation, clusters and learning. From a truly international perspective, the expert contributors capture the most interesting and relevant aspects of knowledge economy. They explore an evolutionary explanation of how culture can play a significant role in learning and the development of skills. Presenting new data and theory developments, this insightful book reveals how changes in the dynamics of knowledge influence the circumstances under which innovation occurs. It also examines cluster development in the knowledge economy, from regional to virtual space. This volume will prove invaluable to academics and researchers who are interested in exploring new ideas surrounding the knowledge economy. Those employed in consultant firms and the public sector, where an understanding of the knowledge economy is important, will also find plenty of relevant information in this enriching compendium.
The overarching research topic addressed in this book is the complex and multifaceted interaction between infrastructural accessibility/connectivity of city-regions on the one hand and knowledge generation in these city-regions on the other hand. To this end, the book brings together chapters analysing how infrastructural accessibility is related to changing patterns of business location of knowledge-intensive industries in city-regions. The chapters in this book specifically dwell on recent manifestations of and developments in the accessibility/knowledge-nexus, with a particular metageographical focus on how this materializes in major city-regions. In the different chapters, this shifting relation is broached from different perspectives (seaports, airports, brainports), at different scales (ranging from global-scale analyses to case studies), and by adopting a variety of methodologies (straddling the wide variety of methodological approaches currently adopted in human geography research). Researchers contributing to this edited volume come from different scholarly backgrounds (sociology, human geography, regional planning), which allows for a varied treatise of this research topic.
Universities are fundamental to the contemporary knowledge economy. They directly and indirectly support economic growth in both developing and advanced economies. In addition to their traditional teaching and research functions, they often also have important roles in supporting regional development and urban regeneration, as well as involvement in fostering international relations, in , cultural developments and in enhancing social cohesion. While higher education institutions in many countries are often assigned key roles in economic and social policy prescriptions, exactly what those roles are and how they should be carried out are often unclear. Universities and the Knowledge Economy provides a much-needed theoretical and empirical analysis of these functions, taking a critical look at the complex connections between knowledge creation, the knowledge economy, and higher education today. This volume: Brings together work on these topics by international experts, reporting and analysing recent policy developments and research Shows the significance of the university’s role in the knowledge economy, and the precise roles that it can play. Presents a range of studies showing how universities interact with other knowledge producers and users, and how these interactions can be managed to achieve the most effective applications of knowledge Universities are multi-faceted institutions that everywhere are accorded special status. Universities and the Knowledge Economy examines how these institutions carry our knowledge production and application, and how their distinctive characters affect what they do. . This title is of both intellectual and operational relevance, and would be suitable for those interested in higher education and policy and practice, and in the theory of higher education. Paul Temple is Reader in Higher Education Management and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.
