Explaining the past, predicting the future: the influence of regional trajectories on innovation networks of new industries in emerging economies

ABSTRACT

Economic geographers have recently made important contributions to understanding of the relationship between regional transformation, industrial specialisation and innovation networks in the emergence of new industries. However, most contemporary research has focused on the influence of networks on regional trajectories, paying lip service to how regional trajectories also influence network configurations. Furthermore, international comparative research on how specific regional innovation system (RIS) trajectories may shape innovation networks in new industrial sectors is underdeveloped.

The paper investigates how the trajectories of Bangalore and Beijing RISs influence the objectives and geographical configuration of innovation networks in the new media industry. The co-evolution of different elements of the RIS trajectory points to the unfolding of a politically and institutionally driven trajectory in Beijing, and a cognitively driven trajectory in Bangalore. These trajectories lead to specific barriers and opportunities for the development of innovation networks in new industries.

KEYWORDS:

• RIS trajectories
• innovation networks
• new media industry
• Beijing
• Bangalore

JEL:

• O30
• O19
• R50

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ In spite of that, the local linkages between the industry and local universities remain weak (D’Costa 2006; Vang, Chaminade, and Coenen 2009).

² The Indian national government introduced a host of policies targeting the Indian ICT sector such as the Computer Policy of 1984, the Computer Software Exports, Development and Training policy of 1986 and the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) of 1990–91.

³ The US Immigration Act of 1990 established the H1B visa programme to enable the employment, up to six years, of workers in a speciality occupation which requires the theoretical and practical application of knowledge and completion of at least a bachelor’s degree.

⁴ By institutional aspects, we mean here the specific rules of the game (North 1990). The top-down nature of these institutions has led to a ‘collective consensus’ in Beijing. By political aspects, we refer to how the government (national and regional) acts in a specific institutional environment to implement an agenda for regional development. In Beijing, there were signs of reinforcing and interrelated mechanisms between the central government and local authorities.

⁵ The project, running from 2014 to 2018, aimed to assess, in a global comparative perspective, how and why firms in different locations engage in knowledge networks. The project investigated four regions around the world: Scania in Sweden, Oslo in Norway, Bangalore in India and Beijing in China, involving four different research institutes and universities.

⁶ IIITB (Bangalore) and School of Public Policy and Management, UCAS (Beijing).

⁷ The methodological meetings involved an international team of researchers, meeting in person at least twice a year. Members of the research team included scholars in economic geography and innovation studies with expertise related to emerging economies areas, ICT and symbolic sectors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been made possible by the support from the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation grant number MMW 2012.0194.