Collaboration for Local Economic Development: Business Networks, Politics and Universities in Two Swedish Cities

Abstract

In this article we want to show how conceptions about collaboration for local eocnomic development in Sweden are constructed on national and local levels. We also show how these conceptions have been realized in two different company networks; in the city of Östersund (“Odenskog företagsstaden”) and in the city of Karlskrona (“Telecom City”). In politics and research, local collaboration or cluster formation are viewed as important tools and levers for local economic development. However, we argue that the local labour markets and unemployment rates in our case studies do not differ significantly, despite very different strategies for collaboration. Therefore, we suspect that the political focus on collaboration is a way of legitimizing the change in regional policy rather than a delegation of real power to the local level. If this continues, we fear that the current regional policy is reduced to a discourse of popular concepts rather than a real instrument for local economic development.

Notes

1. The number of new cooperatives per inhabitant is highest in the rural counties of Jämtland, Gotland and Värmland, (Höckertin, 2001, pp. 101 and 106), i.e. those counties that according to Regionernas tillstånd 2002, the ITPS and Nutek report (2002) had the lowest GRP growth. This also applies to local development groups (Forsberg, 2001).

2. See Katajamäki (1998) and Mustakangas and Vihinen (2003) for Finland's experiences.

3. To get an idea of whether the network, as such, contributed to positive financial consequences for the members, it would thus be important to make a distinction within the Association-project network, where the Association was a prerequisite for the EU project. So this distinction is not made here, because it is difficult to distinguish effects from one or the other, because the companies do not seem to think that possible distortion is significant (interviews with member companies, 25 and 28 April 2003).

4. With about 15 other companies, a small company was able to take on a large job in Stockholm. A medium-sized company found new customers, and a small service company could expand by broadening its offering (interviews with member companies, 25 and 28 April 2003).

5. The representative of the largest company mentions that the company was given help with valuable contacts in Norway. Help was given when requested, but the representative also experiences a VIP lane to authorities in the county (interview with member companies, 29 April 2003).

6. One person said that it was “visionary language and that there could be exchanges among the companies”.

7. Now called the Blekinge Institute of Technology, it serves these towns in the region: Karlskrona, Ronneby and Karlshamn.