Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
of territorial externalities at the meso level (Saxenian 1994; Storper 1998).
Features such as dense social networks appear to be critical channels for
knowledge diffusion and learning, allowing for the recombination of old
and new pieces of knowledge. Indeed, it has been shown that geographi-
cal proximity per se does not produce knowledge spillovers: other forms
of proximity, interacting with spatial propinquity, allow for knowledge
spillovers (e.g., Breschi and Lissoni 2001a, b; Faggian and McCann 2006;
Boschma 2005; Breschi et al. 2005, 2007; Boschma and Ter Wal 2007;
Ponds et al. 2007; D'Este et al. 2012). Thus, the top-down perspective
only accounts for the necessary but not the sufficient conditions needed
to identify a RIS. Such a perspective also needs to be integrated with a
bottom- up (
micro- to- meso
) perspective, which takes account of the inter-
nal and dynamic regularities of territorially embedded socio-economic
structures (Asheim 1995; Asheim and Gertler 2003; Dopfer et al. 2004;
Laursen et al. 2007; Pike et al. 2007, 2010; Crescenzi and Rodríguez-Pose
2011a, b). Among the idiosyncratic characteristics of a RIS which emerge
from bottom-up views (Howells 1996, 1999; Vilanova and Leydesdorff
2001; Tödtling and Trippl 2005; Iammarino 2005; von Tunzelmann 2009a,
b; Crescenzi and Rodríguez-Pose 2009; Uyarra and Flanagan 2010a) there
are: communication patterns relating to innovation processes, both at
individual and corporate levels; invention and learning patterns; localized
knowledge sharing between and within individuals and organizations;
search and scanning procedures relating to innovation and technology;
network integration (within and between networks), operating both intra-
and extra-region; structure and direction of regional governance; and the
historical path dependency of localized innovation processes.
Following the insights of the technological gap approach (Abramovitz
1986; Fagerberg 1987, 1994; Fagerberg et al. 1994; Fagerberg and
Verspagen 2002, 2007), concepts such as 'social capability' and 'techno-
logical congruence' are relevant when considering a meso level of analysis
such as the RIS, in so far as both appear to be highly variable across space,
even within the same national system. Social capability refers to the overall
ability of the region to engage in innovative and organizational processes
and to undertake institutional changes. Technological congruence relates
instead to the distance of the region from the technological frontier, with
a smaller distance improving its capacity to implement the technical prop-
erties embedded in new technologies (Fagerberg et al. 1994). In addition,
recent applications of the capabilities framework to geographical innova-
tion systems have also emphasized that regions and clusters can be con-
sidered as spatial configurations of suppliers, producers and consumers,
each with their own unique level of capabilities (von Tunzelmann, 2009a,
b; Iammarino et al. 2012). Shifting the logic from mere co-location to
