Regional innovation patterns from an evolutionary perspective

ABSTRACT

Regional innovation patterns from an evolutionary perspective. Regional Studies. Based on the conceptual notion and empirical verification that innovation follows differentiated spatial patterns, the paper analyses the conditions that enable changes in regional innovation patterns. Consistently with evolutionary theory, these changes are interpreted as path-dependent processes characterized by trajectories and paradigms, understood as learning processes. The novelty of the work rests on the adaptation of creation, diversification and upgrading pathways – generally used in the literature to explain changes in development paradigms – to the interpretation of changes in learning trajectories and paradigms, and on the empirical validation of this conceptual underpinning.

摘要

从演化视角看区域创新模式。Regional Studies. 本文根据创新跟随着差异化的空间脉络之概念与经验检证，分析让区域创新模式改变成为可能的条件。与演化理论一致的是，这些改变诠释为以轨迹与范式为特徵的路径依赖过程，并理解为学习的过程。本研究的新颖之处在于使解释发展范式改变的文献中被广泛使用的创新，多样化与升级途径，适应于学习轨迹与范式改变的诠释，以及此一概念基础的经验实证。

RÉSUMÉ

Modèles d’innovation régionaux sous une perspective évolutionnaire. Regional Studies. Sur la base de la notion conceptuelle et de la vérification empirique d’après laquelle l’innovation suit des tendances spatiales différenciées, la présente communication analyse les conditions qui permettent des changements dans des modèles d’innovation régionaux. En accord avec le théorie de l’évolution, ces changements sont interprétés comme des procédés tributaire du chemin suivi, caractérisés par des trajectoires et des paradigmes, interprétés comme des processus d’apprentissage. La nouveauté de l’ouvrage réside dans l’adaptation de la création, la diversification et la mise en œuvre des parcours – généralement utilisés dans les documents pour expliquer des variations dans des paradigmes de développement – pour l’interprétation des changements dans les trajectoires et paradigmes d’apprentissage, et dans la validation empirique de cette base conceptuelle.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Regionale Innovationsmuster aus evolutionärer Perspektive. Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag analysieren wir auf der Grundlage der konzeptuellen Vorstellung und empirischen Überprüfung, dass die Innovation differenzierten räumlichen Mustern folgt, die Bedingungen für Veränderungen in regionalen Innovationsmustern. In Übereinstimmung mit der evolutionären Theorie werden diese Veränderungen als pfadabhängige Prozesse interpretiert, die sich durch Verläufe und Paradigmen auszeichnen, welche als Lernprozesse aufgefasst werden. Das Neuartige an diesem Beitrag beruht auf einer Anpassung der Pfade der Erzeugung, Diversifizierung und Modernisierung – welche in der Literatur generell zur Erklärung von Veränderungen in den Entwicklungsparadigmen herangezogen werden – an die Interpretation von Veränderungen bei den Verläufen und Paradigmen des Lernens sowie auf einer empirischen Überprüfung dieser konzeptuellen Grundlage.

RESUMEN

Patrones de innovación regional desde una perspectiva evolutiva. Regional Studies. A partir de la noción conceptual y la verificación empírica de que la innovación sigue patrones espaciales diferenciados, en este artículo analizamos las condiciones que permiten cambios en los patrones de innovación regional. En coherencia con la teoría de la evolución, estos cambios se interpretan como procesos que dependen de rutas y se caracterizan por trayectorias y paradigmas, entendidos como procesos de aprendizaje. La novedad en este trabajo radica en la adaptación de las rutas de creación, diversificación y mejora – que en general en la bibliografía sirven para explicar los cambios en los paradigmas de desarrollo – a la interpretación de los cambios en las trayectorias y los paradigmas del aprendizaje, y en la validación empírica de este fundamento conceptual.

KEYWORDS:

• regional patterns of innovation
• regional learning paradigm
• regional learning trajectory
• pathways

关键词:

• 创新的区域模式
• 区域学习范式
• 区域学习轨迹
• 途径

MOTS-CLÉS:

• modèles d’innovation régionaux
• paradigme d’apprentissage régional
• trajectoire d’apprentissage régionale
• parcours

SCHLÜSSELWÖRTER:

• regionale Innovationsmuster
• regionales Lernparadigma
• regionaler Lernverlauf
• Pfade

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• patrones regionales de innovación
• paradigma del aprendizaje regional
• trayectoria del aprendizaje regional
• rutas

JEL:

• O3
• R11

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org.10.1080/00343404.2017.1296943

Notes

1. Cooke (2001) acknowledges that RIS are rare.

2. Although the ‘linear model of innovation’ has been heavily criticized as unrealistic and rooted in the idea of a rational and orderly innovation process, in many cases scientific advances are still a major source of innovation, as the information and communication technology paradigm indicates. As recently argued by Balconi, Brusoni, and Orsenigo (2010), an alternative model of full complexity, where ‘everything depends on everything else’, does not help in conceptualizing and interpreting the systemic, dynamic and interactive nature of innovation. Additionally, self-reinforcing feedbacks from innovation to knowledge and from economic growth to innovation and knowledge play an important role in innovation processes. Finally, the impact of science on innovation does not merely reside in the creation of new opportunities to be exploited by firms; it also concerns the increasing productivity of, and returns to, R&D through the solution of technical problems, elimination of research directions that have proven wrong and the provision of new research technologies. We therefore strongly support the concept of a ‘spatially diversified, phase-linear, multiple-solution model of innovation’, in which the single patterns represent a linearization, or a partial block-linearization, of an innovation process where feedbacks, spatial interconnections and non-linearities play a prominent role.

3. The regional patterns of innovation framework adopts a relative conception of innovation: regions are innovative insofar as local firms are able to do something new with respect to their past, and not with respect to a dominant paradigm present worldwide (Camagni, 2015). In this respect, imitation can also represent innovations that are new to a region.

4. In the present context, basic scientific knowledge is produced through research activities and tends to have wider technological applications and commercial value, to be more original, recombinatorial and radical, and to be oriented to GPT such as biotechnology, information and communication technology, and nanotechnology. The opposite applies to the applied scientific knowledge. For a similar discussion, see Capello and Lenzi (2013).

5. In the present context, ‘formal knowledge’ refers to codified technological, engineering-based knowledge. On the other hand, ‘informal knowledge’ refers to knowledge that is uncodified, tacit, embedded in professional capabilities, and based on professional practices and experience. For a similar discussion, see Capello and Lenzi (2013).

6. In the present context, we distinguish among different types of imitative behaviours according to the degree of creativity and adaptation introduced in the imitation process (active versus passive imitation). For a similar discussion, see Capello and Lenzi (2016a).

7. Some authors argue that this type of knowledge is primarily exchanged through geographical proximity. Yet, there are several cases documented in the literature in which this type of knowledge is also exchanged at long distances through employees’ mobility (Trippl et al., 2015).

8. For a thorough theoretical discussion of the notion of path dependence and its application in a spatial perspective, see, for example, Henning et al. (2013).

9. In other words, creation, diversification and upgrading are alternative mechanisms through which local agents’ behaviours and events can lead to change in a region’s learning trajectory/paradigm, i.e., through which a regional learning trajectory/paradigm can evolve into a new, more complex, one. Even if we cannot observe which specific agents (e.g., entrepreneurs or policy-makers) have been leading the process of change, we can still see the final aggregate outcome (at the regional level) of such deviating individual actions, and this is the focus of the paper. For a similar approach, see Schamp (2005).

10. Rather than observing and measuring directly the different pathways (an almost impossible task with secondary data), we propose an indirect approach. In fact, an endowment of preconditions for change (specific to each pathway and jump) is interpreted as a proxy for different behaviours and actions and/or events put in place by local actors in previous times. Therefore, in our empirical exercise we linked the outcome of longer-term and slow evolution processes and pathways to the presence and probability of a change. Hence, we could not establish and observe the exact starting point in time of such processes; this is, however, not of detriment to our reasoning. This also explains why the indicators of endowment have only a few time lags with the variable measuring the change in innovation patterns, even if structural long-term effects are the subject of analysis.

11. Such a change is not only conceptually conceivable but also empirically testified by several real cases. Cambridge (UK) perfectly fits this pathway. The region, in fact, has moved from a pure basic science trajectory to a more applied one because of the increasing proliferation of research and technologies based on knowledge recombination, as also described by Martin and Sunley (2006).

12. In a recent paper, Capello and Lenzi (2016c) show how different regional entrepreneurial characteristics and innovation patterns combine to affect regional growth. While based on the same regional innovation pattern framework, the present work departs from the previous one in that the focus is on the dynamics and pathways of regional innovation patterns and not on economic dynamics (i.e., regional GDP per capita growth).