Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
3. Evolutionary theory and regional evolution
Having introduced the distinctiveness of Jacobian clusters, this section takes that insight
as a basis for examining i rst the regional, then the local cluster forms of regional evolu-
tion. As indicated, evidence has been accumulated to show that regions can improve
their prosperity by adjusting or even transitioning in relation to their historic path
dependence and history. This is by no means easy, but possibly as a result of the over-
ambitious prospectus of 1960s systems planning and rel ection on the need to prioritise
system 'levers', if they experiment by moving away from uniform policy prescriptions
and evolving an integrated substance-process approach to regional development, with
constant monitoring and adaptation, regions can become innovative systems. They may
previously have been non-innovative systems, 'locked in' to an apparently evaporating
industrial paradigm, or they may have been fragmented industrial regions possessed of
diverse and unconnected economic elements, and for these the evolutionary challenge
to search for and select a survival strategy on which to build a success strategy is at its
most acute. The temporal dimension, in the absence of accomplished governance of this
process, may be long enough to be economically fatal and the region never develops, but
it may be foreshortened by judicious application of the knowledge and organisational
competences Penrose (1959 [1995]) sees as characteristic of the organisationally and cog-
nitively sophisticated i rm.
In evolutionary theory, it will be recalled, i rms are conceived of as collective organi-
sations with a variable degree of internally generated and externally learned resource-
development capability. Regions and regional development have more in common with
this perspective than with the neoclassical world of homogeneous, atomistic units of
rational utility maximisation. Accordingly, the evolutionary theory of the i rm and the
region enjoy greater conceptual complementarity. Conceiving them as dif erentiated,
making use of variable proportions of knowledge and capability inputs and benei ting
from methodologies both for learning and, more importantly, knowledge-generation, on
which economic advantage may be constructed, are key in this. Such capabilities are path-
dependent (Arthur, 1994) but not predetermined, they can be learned, thus widening the
range of feasible innovation opportunities af ecting economic progress. Path dependence
is criticised as inclining towards the deterministic, but it can be shown to make a signii -
cant contribution to understanding cluster evolution through related variety in 'Jacobian
clusters' (see section 2 above and section 6 below). Related variety can be seen as rather
static and even conservative in its reliance on oi cial statistics, but it can be dynamised in
cluster theory by the evolutionary notion of 'cluster mutation'. Networks are shown from
the research reported in the penultimate section of this chapter to be the determining
feature of clusters dei ned as geographically proximate social capital for purposes of i rm
evolution. More generally, such relations are also globalised through 'distant networks'
that, among other things, help explain 'open innovation', that is, global outsourcing,
even of research if not yet of innovation where spatial proximity still seems vital.
Unlike the neoclassical world of isolated utility-maximisers for whom technology and
learning gains are still largely exogenous, purchased of the shelf, the evolutionary world
is one in which innovative, imitative, unpredictable and Pasteur's 'fortune favours the
prepared mind' ef ects occur. Illustratively, but empirically true, a region that might be
deemed, in ef ect, redundant since its population had largely left to seek opportunity
elsewhere, its agriculture was uncompetitive and there were in any case low linkages
