Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
approaches like the varieties of capitalism (VoC) (Hall and Soskice, 2001), national busi-
ness systems (Whitley, 2000) or social systems of innovation and production (Amable,
2000).
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They deliver insights into two mechanisms: institutional coherence and institu-
tional complementarity, both contributing to the slow change and relative
stability of
institutional settings at the national level
. Compared with studies of national innovation
systems, they are characterized by a more elaborate institutional analysis and dif eren-
tiation of institutional arrangements. The varieties of capitalism approach treats the
respective objectives not as a random collection of institutions, but rather as a pattern
of interconnected relationships between the dif erent elements of the institutional struc-
tures, which as a result dei ne its coherence (Amable, 2000). Emphasis is placed on the
complementary nature of institutional coni gurations within the economy, which make
some institutions more ei cient through their interaction with others. It is assumed that
the general logic of coordination is probably similar across dif erent key institutional
coni gurations (Casper et al., 2005). Institutional complementarity, which links together
dif erent institutions and modes of organization in a certain architecture, contributes to
coherence. While the innovation system approaches place emphasis on the dif erences
in the institutional endowment that explain why it is dii cult to change a path, the VoC
approach highlights particularly the mechanisms of institutional complementarity and
coherence.
The question of why in the same national institutional framework several regional
innovation systems can emerge and how these are interlinked and intersect with the
national one is paid little attention in the literature strand of the VoC approach.
Economic geography provides a richness of theoretical and empirical contributions that
underline the region as an important organizational level for a variety of processes and
territorial- specii c selection processes that close down varieties by contributing to path
dependency. Agglomeration and localization economies and dynamic localized learning
processes are assessed as the main mechanisms leading to region-specii c characteristics
and localized capability building. Untraded interdependencies and idiosyncratic context
conditions evolve over time, fostered by knowledge spillovers and proximity economies
that are especially important for tacit knowledge transfer (Cooke, 2005; Gertler, 2003;
Malmberg and Maskell, Chapter 18 in this topic; Storper, 1997). These mechanisms and
processes give explanations for institutional variation at the regional level and the dis-
tinct regional institutional endowment. The question of how institutional variation and
institutional change at the national and regional level is interrelated and, in turn, how
these processes af ect innovation at the i rm and the sectoral level in a path is in many
respects an open one.
Interplay between institutions, competencies and demand
The strands of institutional approaches with dif erent analytical levels emphasize the co-
evolution of institutions and innovation over time and provide complementary insights
into path dependent processes of economic systems. Especially the interplay between
institutional settings, competencies and demand seems to be constitutive for the path-
dependent development of innovation systems. The national innovation system concept
emphasizes the production structure and user-producer relationship for innovative devel-
opments and competence building over time. Research on sectoral systems of innovation
shows that innovation processes are determined by sector-specii c institutions and in
