Factors shaping the international knowledge connectivity of industrial clusters: a comparative study of two Latin American cases

Abstract

Recent research has emphasized that success of industrial clusters is not only driven by intra-cluster knowledge sharing (‘local buzz’) but also by externally sourced knowledge (‘global knowledge pipelines’). This article examines the factors that determine the channels through which clusters connect with global knowledge pipelines depending on the structure of the global value chain within which they are inserted, their knowledge base and their stage of evolution. Building on a comparative case study of the salmon farming cluster in Chile and the software cluster in Costa Rica, we adopt an evolutionary perspective based on historical analysis to better understand how the configuration of clusters’ international knowledge linkages shifts over time. Our findings suggest that (i) the more hierarchical the global value chain structure, the less room for knowledge co-creation between local and foreign actors; (ii) clusters relying on analytical knowledge bases opt for more formal and coordinated links with high involvement of public actors, whereas in clusters relying on synthetic knowledge bases, international knowledge interaction is based on less formal links mainly between business actors; and (iii) as clusters evolve the channels through which they connect with foreign knowledge increase in number and new ‘hybrid’ varieties develop.     

Hyperlinked actors in the global knowledge communities and diffusion of innovation tools in nascent industrial field

Innovation is accomplished through collaborations of thousands of researchers embedded in a growing international knowledge community, where some hyperlinked actors can strongly impact the diffusion of innovation tools within the community. Few extant studies have empirically inspected the following issues which govern the influence of hyperlinked actors: (1) how the heterogeneity in their actor attributes regulates the volume of their influences; (2) how the nature of connectivity of these actors impacts the volume of their influences. Our current study intends to address this gap by examining the diffusion of innovation tools among life scientists around the world in a time span of 16 years, and we find that for hyperlinked scientists: (1) heavy usage and high variety of usage behaviors have stronger relationship with diffusion rate than light usage and low variety of usage; (2) light usage and high variety usage behaviors have stronger relationship with extent of diffusion than heavy usage and low variety usage; (3) international links have stronger relationship with both the rate and extent of diffusion than domestic links. Our work contributes to innovation research by providing a sharper understanding on the social contagion mechanism in innovation diffusion within global knowledge communities.     

Local clusters in global value chains: exploring dynamic linkages between Germany and Pakistan

Recent research has underlined the importance of external linkages for industrial clusters. Suppliers and buyers within a global value chain offer important external ties for cluster-based producers not only in terms of the distribution of physical goods, but also for knowledge flows and innovation. Globalization has intensified such value chain links, connecting geographically dispersed producers to global markets. Yet, there is limited research on how local clusters enter global chains or on ties between clusters in the developed and developing world. This study addresses this gap. It uses the case of the global surgical instrument industry to analyse connections and differences between the industry's leading production clusters in Germany and Pakistan. Global standards, low-cost competition, and advances in medical technology raise challenges for both clusters. The paper explores the responses to these challenges. It distinguishes between knowledge and production links to illustrate differentiation in each cluster, diverging trajectories and continuing ties.     

Competing Visions of Community: Empowerment and Abandonment in the Governance of Coalfield Regeneration

This article engages with recent debates which assert that community participation and empowerment are place‐contingent. The particular nature of localities has regularly been taken to account for success or failure in processes of participation and regeneration. In contrast, this article exposes the failings based in the nature of the process of regeneration in the complex intersection of national agendas of community participation, regional objectives of economic growth and local aspirations of social cohesion and improved amenities. These agendas meet in the seemingly mutual pursuit of the ‘active community’. They become manifest in the micro‐politics of negotiating and enacting different constructions of community by the different actors ‘empowered’ in the regeneration process: regional development agencies, local government and local civil society. The article is based on ethnographic research in the Kent coalfield. The coalfields as distinct places have commanded a lasting place in the academic and policy literature: romanticized as the epitome of ‘communityness’ but demonized as the site of problem groups. This otherness has outlasted the industry the communities were built on. The analysis here shows that the social organization of regeneration in an arguably ‘different’ place is less driven by local specificities than by a failure to make visible conflicting constructions of community; therefore both the pathologizing of disadvantaged social groups and calls for more ‘community’ in policy delivery rather than policy reform are called into question.     

Innovation in food firms: contribution of regional networks within the international business context

This paper explores the role of regional networks in processes of innovation within an international business context. It is hypothesized that firms participating in regional networks demonstrate a stronger innovation competence. Data are drawn from a survey among food firms in the region of Meetjesland, Belgium, and reflect the relation between the firm and a number of regional characteristics. After restructuring the data through factor analysis and cluster analysis, the important role of regional networking is revealed using discriminant analysis. The analysis marks out two factors having the strongest power to discriminate between the clusters: firms are classified as having a stronger innovation competence when networking within the region, and when orienting towards the international market. Results demonstrate that internationally operating firms benefit from regional networking. Further, it is argued that regional networking is not contradictory to an international market orientation, and that firms gain innovation competence by searching for external knowledge on different geographical scales. As these networks have the potential to enhance the innovation competence of firms, support to regional networking is promoted as a policy tool.     

Reduced opportunities for regional renewal: The role of rigid threat responses among a region's established firms

This article illustrates how opportunities for regional renewal in a peripheral region may be reduced by rigid threat responses undertaken by established firms operating within traditional regional industry. In an inductive case study of new biorefinery industry initiatives in a region where traditional pulp-and-paper and forestry industry was in decline, we used primary and secondary data to outline how a set of new industry players who created innovative ways of using existing regional infrastructures and resources sparked rigid threat responses among established firms from the struggling traditional industry. Established industry firms framed new industry initiatives as threats, and responded by (1) reducing new industry actors’ possibilities for new business development, (2) engaging in entrenched resistance, (3) creating collaborative illusions and (4) undermining the fundamentals of the new industry. Consequently, this study contributes to existing literature by proposing the potential of applying the threat-rigidity thesis on a regional level. This is achieved by illustrating that conflicting behaviours between new and established regional industry actors constrain opportunities for regional renewal in a peripheral region. As such, relevant directions for future research and policy implications are outlined.     

Re‐Thinking Territorial Cohesion in the European Planning Context

The socio‐economic dimensions of cohesion have long been considered an integral part of Europeanization. However, recently a third dimension has been added to the Europe 2020 cohesion policy debate: territorial cohesion. Consequently this term is as yet undeveloped, resulting in a lack of consensus on how to define and interpret it. Such ambiguity represents a theoretical and empirical challenge to regional actors needing to respond to European Union (EU) directives while operationalizing the concept within their national and/or regional agendas. This article uses Portugal as a case study to examine how the concept of territorial cohesion is being interpreted and transposed from EU‐based to territorial‐based instruments and policy documents. First, we conducted a qualitative content analysis (QCA) of a selection of European and regional publications to compare their intrinsic discourses. This was followed by around 60 structured qualitative interviews, conducted with leading actors who had been instrumental in writing or implementing regional policy documents. On the basis of this dual analysis we conclude that, as a whole, the writers of the Portuguese strategic documents successfully transposed this concept, although perceptible differences exist between regions, as local actors have selectively redefined it to better suit their strategic priorities. These differences are debated with the aim of contributing to the design of effective public policies that facilitate inclusion, cohesion and Europeanization.     

Sustainable entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals: Community-led initiatives,the social solidarity economy and commons ecologies

The social solidarity economy is an approach to the production and consumption of goods, services and knowledge that promises to address contemporary economic, social and environmental crises more effectively than business as usual. The paper employs the concept of commons ecologies to examine the practices, relationships and interactions among actors and organisations in the social solidarity economy, as well as between them and the mainstream economy, which shape the field and its degree of autonomy in relation to capitalism, through a process defined as boundary commoning. Such process shapes both local and regional commons ecologies, as well as the participation of local and regional actors in wider networks at national, international and global levels. The paper takes a case study-based approach to identify practices, relationships and interactions of commons ecologies in relation to selected community-led initiatives in the UK, Portugal, Brazil and Senegal. Each case study illuminates different qualities of local/regional commons ecologies and their forms of engagement with wider networks. Further, the paper shows that these cases demonstrate how the social solidarity economy may facilitate delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals in a distinctive way. In each case, SSE acts as a vehicle for expressing participants' values and principles consistent with those underlying the SDGs. Local implementation of SDGs is thus an in-built feature of these commons ecologies. The participation of community-led initiatives in international and global networks offers opportunities to learn from local level experiences and successes, potentially strengthening SDG implementation more generally.     

Making Distribution Markets: Market‐Wide Institutions in French and American Bicycle Distribution, 1865–1914

Scholars usually analyze market‐making within specific parameters. Market sociologists analyze institutions primarily between competitors; global value chain scholars study institutional innovation along exchange sequences; and varieties of capitalism scholars examine national institutional frameworks. I analyze how entrepreneurs and trade associations used “market‐wide” institutions such as exhibitions and publications in French and American bicycle distribution systems between 1865 and 1914 to improve exchange efficiencies and to influence other market actors and the markets' environments. I argue that market‐makers adjusted these institutions to market conditions, and also to national institutional frameworks. The findings present opportunities for further research in competition and exchange institutions.     

Building a national innovation system through regional innovation systems

This paper deals with the effective formulation and implementation of a national innovation system. It emphasizes that a concept of regional innovation system is a good tool to generate an effective national innovation system, as it can effectively create different sectoral innovation systems in different regions. Based on this theoretical review, this paper analyzes Korean regional innovation systems in terms of mapping of innovation actors. It concludes that the Korean national innovation system is relatively weak, as it has only three advanced regional innovation systems. However, it tells that there are six fast developing regional innovation systems and seven less developed regional innovation systems. They should be refined and further developed based on the active support by the central government, some policy measures for activating interactive learning between innovation actors, and also the close cooperation between the central and regional governments.     

Development of academic entrepreneurship in a non-mature context: the role of the university as a hub-organisation

This paper focuses on how the evolving roles of a university and its Technology Transfer Office (TTO) are stimulating academic entrepreneurship in a non-mature entrepreneurial ecosystem. A more mature entrepreneurial ecosystem was built gradually by these actors through their progressive creation of innovation intermediaries and coordination among the local players involved in the creation of start-ups. We analyse how the university became a hub organisation. We use the case of the University of Strasbourg to show that the university contributed to the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem by acting as a boundary spanner and by building and orchestrating the network of the stakeholders in the local system of innovation. This ‘hub’ university became a leading regional organisation at the political level. The TTO played a central role in supporting academic entrepreneurship at the operational level based on its evolution from a revenue maximising model to a model that takes account of social and economic regional development. The progressive adoption of a more selective model of start-up creation requires good coordination among the local actors. Over time, the TTO’s boundary spanning function increased to encompass the development of operational network building and orchestrating functions.     

Knowledge flow and inter-firm networks: The influence of network resources,spatial proximity and firm size

The objective of this paper is to analyse the characteristics and nature of the networks that firms utilize to access knowledge and facilitate innovation. The paper draws on the notion of network resources, distinguishing two types: social capital–consisting of the social relations and networks held by individuals; and network capital–consisting of the strategic and calculative relations and networks held by firms. The methodological approach consists of a quantitative analysis of data from a survey of firms operating in knowledge-intensive sectors of activity. The key findings include: social capital investment is more prevalent among firms frequently interacting with actors from within their own region; social capital investment is related to the size of firms; firm size plays a role in knowledge network patterns; and network dynamism is an important source of innovation. Overall, firms investing more in the development of their inter-firm and other external knowledge networks enjoy higher levels of innovation. It is suggested that an over-reliance on social capital forms of network resource investment may hinder the capability of firms to manage their knowledge networks. It is concluded that the link between a dynamic inter-firm network environment and innovation provides an alternative thesis to that advocating the advantage of network stability.     

Provoking identities: entrepreneurship and emerging identity positions in rural development

This article discusses entrepreneurship in a depleted community in transition. The purpose is to develop knowledge about how discourses are used in the positioning of identity in regional development. The concept positioning illustrates how identities are provoked, challenged, negotiated and moved into identity positions that break away from the idea of imitating successful and wealthy regions; instead, locality, place and history emerge as important resources from where local actors obtain agency and recognize new opportunities. Ethnographic data of a single case were collected over a six-year period between 2005 and 2010. The longitudinal nature of the study made it possible to incorporate how local stakeholders took on new identity positions, while handling their inspiration as well as their frustration. Results show how rural change was conditioned by discourses and how entrepreneurship challenged and reframed dominating structures through interaction between entrepreneurship and community. Four discourses, expressed as dichotomies available to people in this depleted community, illustrate the interactive process of positioning: change vs. traditions, rational vs. irrational, spectacular vs. mundane and individual vs. collective. The results support research emphasizing perspectives that acknowledge interaction between entrepreneurship and context as well as discursive aspects of regional development.     

Australia's regional innovation systems: inter-industry interaction in innovative activities in three Australian territories

Regional specifics reveal in differences in economic activity and structure, the institutional, socio-economic and cultural environment and not least in the capability of regions to create new knowledge and to generate innovations. Focusing on the regional level, this paper for three Australian territories (New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland) explores patterns of innovative activities in their private business sectors. Furthermore, these patterns are compared to specifics of each region's economic structure. We make use of input–output-based innovation flow networks, which are directed and weighted instead of binary. The value added of the proposed analysis is that we are able to trace a variety of different aspects related to the structure of innovative activities for each territory. It gets evident that mostly innovative activities in each territory are not strong in ‘niche’ branches but in fields of intense economic activity, signalising the high path-dependency of innovative activities in a specific geographical environment.     

Community-based research: Engaging universities in technology-related knowledge exchanges

Many universities are disengaged from their local regions. While universities are hotbeds of knowledge with the potential to generate new and disruptive technologies, their development strategies and public relations engagements rarely emphasize the potential of universities to act as local and regional economic engines. Similarly, information systems (IS) and other scholars generally aim to make international, not local impacts. Local contributions are often viewed as distractions from more visible and highly rewarded roles in the global scholarly community, such as publishing in international journals. This Global Challenge article argues that universities' local ecosystems are appropriate targets for IS scholarly activity, particularly when this is undertaken in the form of community-based research (CBR). Following conceptual discussions of ‘community’ and key elements of CBR, we draw on the authors' personal research experiences to evaluate the potential contributions of IS scholars in terms of CBR projects focused on technology-related knowledge exchange. After outlining implications and potential future directions for IS researchers, we close by presenting a call to IS scholars to intensify their local ecosystem research collaborations in technology-related knowledge exchanges contexts, in order to increase the relevance and local impact of their research.     

Knowledge networks and universities: Locational and organisational aspects of knowledge transfer interactions

The aim of this paper is to explore the inter-organisational knowledge networks that universities in the UK engage in through their knowledge transfer activities. In particular, it analyses the extent to which organisational and locational factors are associated with the nature of these networks. Based on a UK-wide survey of universities, it is shown that the nature and formation of inter-organisational knowledge networks is related principally to the organisational characteristics of network actors, and secondarily to their spatial location. The characteristics of a network actor, in this case a university, are likely to influence the type, diversity and location of other actors with which it networks. Nevertheless, spatial location is an important secondary factor influencing network formation, especially the geographic reach of a university's network. It is further found that the value generated by universities from their knowledge networks is associated with the type of organisations within which they interact as well as their spatial location. It is concluded that such networks impact both regional innovation capability and regional competitiveness. The results have implications for policymakers, especially in terms of the spatial scale at which the demand and supply for university knowledge can be best mediated.     

区域产业集群竞争优势构建——基于产业集群与区域创新能力互动关系视角

提升产业集群可持续竞争优势,区域创新能力可能是突破点。本文认为区域创新能力与区域产业集群之间实现互动,能为产业集群拥有竞争优势提供保障,从而促进区域经济可持续发展。产业集群的发展能够为提升区域创新能力提供所需的新知识、新信息;区域创新能力的提升能推动产业结构的调整与优化等,并促进产业集群的发展。本文通过进一步延伸探讨两者的互动关系发现,区域创新能力的加强,能够从开发新技术、引进人才、调整产业结构等方面提升区域产业集群的竞争优势。集群竞争优势的提升还需要全区域各方力量的共同努力,培育创新链条,营造良好的创新环境。     

Towards a New Conceptualization of Innovation in Space: Territorial Patterns of Innovation

This article investigates the way in which regions innovate. Its conceptual framework departs from the simple notion that scientific activities equate with knowledge, which assumes that the presence of local knowledge produced by research centres, universities and firms is a necessary and sufficient condition for increasing the innovative capacities in local firms, fed by local spillovers. In particular, the paradigmatic jump in interpreting regional innovation processes lies in a conceptual framework interpreting not a single phase of the innovation process, but the different modes of performing different phases of the innovation process. This article conceptually identifies different territorial patterns of innovation and highlights the context conditions (internal and external to the region) that accompany each innovation pattern. Based on this debate, I express some doubts on the usefulness of EU policy aims for achieving a figure of 3% of the EU's GDP (public and private) to be invested in R&D/innovation and instead strongly support normative suggestions towards thematically and regionally focused innovation policies.     

Navigating value networks to co-create sustainable business models: An actionable staging approach

Sustainable transitions typically require collaboration between multiple actors in the value chain or value network. Recent research has emphasized mapping of stakeholders and values as a starting point for identifying opportunities to realign these relationships, followed by business model experimentation to enable change. However, a simple mapping exercise does not consider the interplay between actors' concerns, business models, and interpretations of sustainability. Pedersen et al. (2022) advocated that aligning concerns is essential to collaborative design and innovation, and requires continuous negotiation between multiple actors. Here, we present a microlevel in-depth case study to examine how alignment across central value chain actors may be facilitated through the staging of numerous negotiations during the innovation process. Drawing on the staging negotiation spaces co-design framework, we provide insight into the content of multiple negotiations concerned with different aspects of sustainability during the development of a more sustainable laundry service system on the Danish island of Bornholm. Our findings illustrate how both value chain actors and a third-party intermediary stage negotiations, and elaborate the framework by attending to the strategic navigational efforts of network alignment through negotiations.     

Innovation pathways at the Base of the Pyramid: Establishing technological legitimacy through social attributes

Two challenging imperatives we face today are the amelioration of global poverty and reducing environmental impacts such as global climate change. This article discusses these challenges in the ‘Base of the Pyramid’ (BOP), impoverished socio-economic groups from underdeveloped regions that have traditionally been excluded from economic participation. Drawing on the BOP, global value chain and latecomer literature, we propose five innovation pathways for social and environmental improvement within poor communities. We extend Geel’s (2002) new socio-technical landscape framework, Hall et als' (2011) and Hall and Martin’s (2005) framework for innovative uncertainties and Aldrich and Fiol’s (1994) legitimization processes by proposing a ‘hurdles and levers analysis,’ suggesting that in addition to overcoming technological and commercial hurdles, social attributes play a key role in BOP innovation dynamics. Two illustrative cases are presented; an initiative to replace candles and kerosene lanterns with semiconductor white light-emitting-diodes (WLEDs) in various BOP locations; and the development of naturally colored cotton in poor regions of Brazil for sale locally and abroad. We argue that social uncertainties in particular may act as ‘levers’, compensating for initial technological and commercial deficiencies, thus providing technology developers time to improve. The paper concludes with implications for policy and future research.