Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
co-evolution, it is argued that, for a region to be progressive, the capabili-
ties of all its supplier and customer firms need to be in tune and sufficiently
dynamic to be able to cope with the continuous change of actors' needs
and abilities (von Tunzelmann 2009b).
Therefore, regional systems with stronger capabilities and a progressive
knowledge base will also tend to be better equipped to exploit new techno-
logical opportunities, to adapt existing activities to emerging business envi-
ronments, and to learn more rapidly about how to build new capabilities and
advantages. Conversely, and again in analogy with the firms, several reasons
may account for a system failure, including local actors' poor absorptive
capacity (Cohen and Levinthal 1989), the underdevelopment of system
social capabilities (Abramovitz 1999), or the lack of any dynamic interactive
capabilities and system integration (von Tunzelmann 2009a, b). As a result,
a particular regional innovation system may lag far behind others (even
within the same national borders), while the weakest regions may not even
show systemic features at all (Doloreux and Parto 2004; Iammarino 2005;
Rodríguez-Pose and Crescenzi 2008; Uyarra and Flanagan 2010a).
This explicitly geographical RIS view therefore emphasizes evolution-
ary mechanisms such as routines, technological trajectories, selection
environments, heterogeneity and path dependency. New opportunities are
perceived to be shaped and constrained by variety and path dependency
at the meso level, or, in other words, by the inheritance of local structural
regularities from past knowledge accumulation and learning. In such a
perspective, the interdependence between structures and actors can be
regarded as a feedback mechanism in that not only do the characteristics
of the selection environment and their changes influence the actors, but
the actors also change the environment (Boschma and Lambooy 1999;
Lambooy and Boschma 2001). However, in spite of the central theo-
retical role played by dynamics and co-evolution in the innovation system
conceptualization, only a small percentage of geographical innovation
systems studies 'can be considered 'dynamic' in the sense that they focus
on a historical process or development over time rather than on a snap-
shot of a system in a particular time period' (Carlsson 2003, p. 11). 15 In the
main, the prevailing approach for studying the processes of co-evolution
within sub-national systems of innovation still largely adheres to a static
view of the world (von Tunzelmann 2003; Doloreux and Parto 2004;
Uyarra 2010; Uyarra and Flanagan 2010a).
4.5.2
Sectoral and Technological ISs and Interactive Learning
The approach to innovation known as the sectoral innovation system
(SIS) is described as 'a set of new and established products for specific
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