An Entrepreneurial University Strategy for Renewing a Declining Industrial City: The Norrköping Way

Abstract

Norrköping, a small urban area formerly dependent upon old labour-intensive industries, has developed a knowledge-based renewal strategy inspired by ideas emanating from its superseded local economy. Using a longitudinal case study, this paper explicates the dynamics of change among a triple helix of university, industry and government actors that involved building consensus within the city and with its neighbouring city of Linköping. The keys to success have been cross-institutional entrepreneurship, aggregating regional and national resources to realize a unique, locally generated strategy rather than adopting the usual list of hot high-tech topics such as information technology, biotechnology or alternative energy, and striking a balance between intra-regional competition and collaboration in order to achieve common objectives and avoid any stasis arising from hyper-competitiveness. This paper utilizes a triple-helix “spaces” framework and makes comparisons with other relevant cases to develop a theoretical model of regional renewal through the hybridization of old and new industrial and knowledge elements.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the HELIX Excellence Centre at Linköping University for financial support and the respondents for their valuable contribution to the study.