Bjørnar Sæther

Retroduction: an alternative research strategy?

In this essay it is argued that the dualism between pure inductive and deductive research processes can be overcome by introducing retroduction. Retroduction makes possible a research process that is characterized by the linking of evidence (induction) and social theory (deduction) in a continually evolving, dynamic process. It will be argued that research processes characterized by retroduction have a potential that can be utilized within research on the greening of industry. This research is typically carried out as case studies, with some links to theory. These links can be made more explicit through retroduction and in turn increase our understanding of the contradicting relations between industry and the social and environmental context it is operating within.

Environmental improvements in the Norwegian pulp and paper industry — from place and government to space and market

This article investigates how the Norwegian pulp and paper industry has dealt with its environmental problems from the early 1970s until today. Up until 1990, effluents to air and water were the only problem under investigation, while during the 1990s the agenda has widened to include recycling of paper and protection of biological diversity in the forests. The influence of government policy, the environmental movements and purchasers of paper on policy formation in the pulp and paper industry are analysed.

CLEANER PRODUCTION ASSESSMENT IN NORWAY: EXPERIENCES AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Experience from programmes introducing cleaner production assessments in Norwegian industry were studied and the results from 67 cleaner production assessments categorized and analysed. A quantitative analysis is presented of options for economic and environmental improvements that have been identified through these assessments. The analyses verify that ‘pollution prevention pays’. The study also indicates that additional grants to emphasize energy conservation in the assessments generate additional profit and benefits to the environment. Continuous efforts towards a long-term goal of clean production and clean products is the future challenge. Cleaner production can become part of a continuous environmental improvement process. An understanding of cleaner production as a procedure for interactive learning and collective entrepreneurship is established. In the companies, an environmental management system where cleaner production assessments are an integral part can be the point of departure for continuous learning in the process towards sustainability. How governments make use of their role to define the room for ‘innovative manoeuvre’ to promote cleaner production throughout industry is the basic question to be addressed for government institutions.

Agricultural extension services and rural innovation in inner Scandinavia

The article investigates how agricultural extension services respond to demands for new knowledge support within agriculture. The author asks whether they provide for the knowledge needs of agriculture as per a conventional agro-industrial model, or act as catalysts for restructuring processes. The extension services are analysed as part of regional innovation systems. The article investigates extension services in one Norwegian county, Hedmark, and one Swedish county, Värmland. In Värmland changes are aimed towards a regionally networked system supporting entrepreneurship and rural development. In Hedmark the extension services remain integrated in a regionalized national innovation system promoting a conventional agro-industrial model, although signs of support of an extended knowledge base are identified.

Innovation in small regions

This special issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography on ‘Innovation in small regions’ is intended to contribute to the increasing body of research and knowledge on innovation activity in regions outside major metropolitan regions and leading clusters. While such regions are termed small in this special issue, a theoretically more substantial way of describing such regions in the literature has been to argue that they are organizationally thin (Tödtling & Trippl 2005; Isaksen 2014). The thinness consists in the fact that the regions have few or only low-profile universities and research organizations, no or weak industrial clusters, and a lack of highly educated workers (Tödtling & Trippl 2005). The organizational thinness may result in a low level of research and development (R&D) and product innovation, with firms predominantly concentrating on incremental process innovations. While such arguments have both an intuitive appeal and certainly can be backed by empirical studies in a number of regions, we argue that one size does not fit all, even in the periphery. Each of the articles presented here documents, based on highly different approaches and methodologies, a variety of innovative activities in small regions. Most of the articles in this special issue first appeared at sessions organized by the Norwegian Geography Network on Regional Development and Economic Geography at the Nordic Geographers Meeting in Reykjavik in June 2013. Both the network and the conference sessions aimed to encourage research on innovation in small regions. This was motivated by a wish to fill the gap between the level of research and knowledge on metropolitan areas and successful clusters and that on small regions. To some extent, concepts and theories developed in studies of dynamic core regions are also used to investigate industrial development and innovation processes in small and organizationally thin regions. Often-used mechanisms for industrial development in core regions are local knowledge spillover through labour market mobility, academia–industry collaboration, the formation of new firms through regional branching, and ‘buzz’. Such mechanisms are probably not particularly relevant for understanding industrial development and innovation activity in small regions where, for example, there is little local knowledge spillover due to a limited number of actors with related competence. The ‘core region thinking’ has also inspired the development of some well-known and much-used strategies for industrial development, such as regional cluster policies, that focus on local knowledge flow and the creation of common production factors for similar and related firms, but this is less relevant in small regions. Thus, we see a need for theoretical and empirical studies of innovation activity in small regions in order to increase our understanding of the particular innovation processes in such regions and to improve policy strategies targeted at small regions. The five articles in this issue contribute to better understanding of different aspects of innovation in small regions. In the first article, Jan Ženka, Josef Novotný, Ondřej Slach & Viktor Květoň study industrial specialization and economic performance in small regions in Czechia. They use a dataset from 2009 containing data on 203 regions with less than 200,000 inhabitants. The reported findings indicate that economic diversity does not have a direct impact on economic performance. A distinction between small regions with high employment in manufacturing industry and those with a much lower share of employment in manufacturing is introduced. The former group of small regions benefits from specialization, while the latter group benefits from diversity. These are interesting results in light of the ongoing debates on related variety, path dependence, and regional development in general. Stig-Erik Jakobsen & Torbjørn Lorentzen investigate innovation collaboration between firms in Norwegian regions, based on data from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). They find comprehensive regional differences; collaboration is more frequent among enterprises in small towns and rural areas than metropolitan regions. The results of a logistic regression analysis indicates that the location of a firm has a significant effect on its likelihood to participate in innovation collaboration, and confirm that firms located in rural areas collaborate more than firms in metropolitan regions. Firms in rural areas are more inclined to collaborate outside their industry sector and outside their regions compared to firms in more central regions. Such linkages represent bridges to new knowledge. Mona Hedfeldt & Mats Lundmark study the role of inmigrants in the formation of new firms in the Bergslagen region in Sweden. Bergslagen is an old industrial region and inmigration is proposed as a source of tapping into the outer world. In-migration is expected to stimulate knowledge spillover much in the same way as labour mobility does in more dynamic regions. Empirically, the authors find that in-migrants were more inclined to start new firms, and they examine the socio-demographic characteristics of self-employed in-migrants. Their study is based on longitudinal georeferenced data covering the period 1993‒2008. Hedfeldt & Lundmark conclude that the estimated models show that both in-migration and return migration have a positive and significant effect on the decision to start a business. The point of departure for the study by Bjørn-Tore Flåten, Arne Isaksen & James Karlsen was two manufacturing firms in a small region in southern Norway. They investigated the mechanisms contributing to the firms’ competitiveness and Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography, 2015 Vol. 69, No. 2, 65–66, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2015.1011685

Emerging Nordic food approaches

This special issue consists of six articles discussing the ongoing changes of food production and consumption in the Nordic countries and in particular the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The transformation of food production and consumption systems and the social and corporate responses to the observed negative environmental, health and other side-effects of the mainstream, industrialized food production–consumption model have been studied extensively. Research debates have centred around whether and in which ways the emerging new food economy entails a genuine paradigmatic change towards ‘post-productivism’ (Goodman, 2003; Marsden, 2013; Roche & Argent, 2015) and a ‘re-territorialization’ of the food economy with new opportunities for endogenous sustainable rural development (van der Ploeg & Renting, 2004; Watts, Ilbery, & Maye, 2005; Winter, 2003). Such concerns have been summarized in the notion ‘the new rural development paradigm’ (Murdoch, 2000). Core conceptualizations of transformations of food systems have been and still are, as documented in the papers included in this special issue; ‘conventions of quality’ (Storper & Salais, 1997), ‘alternative food networks’ (Renting, Marsden, & Banks, 2003; Watts et al., 2005), ‘short food supply chains’ (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000) and territorially embedded marketing and certification schemes (Ilbery,Morris, Buller,Maye,&Kneafsey, 2005; Parrott,Wilson,&Murdoch, 2002). Literatures on the emerging new food economy have been dominated by reports from a limited number of countries, in particular the U.K., Holland, Italy and the U.S., while the ongoing changes in the Nordic countries are less comprehensively studied, although they are by no means un-explored (Amilien, Fort, & Ferras, 2007; Byrkjeflot, Pedersen, & Svejenova, 2013). As reported in this special issue, Scandinavian producers, consumers and policy-makers have come quite some way in transforming the approaches to the production and marketing of food. The main part of this transformation parallels with the rest of Europe, however other aspects are uniquely Nordic. From a position with no distinct gastronomic profile, a new internationally trendsetting gourmet restaurant sector has sprung up in since the early 2000s, attracting the attention of global media, gastronomic chefs and ‘foodies’. Commentators credit the key initiating and inspirational role for this development to a group of charismatic chefs and gastronomic entrepreneurs, who in 2004 formulated and launched the ‘New Nordic Cuisine’ (NNC) manifesto. The manifesto aimed for a new way of cooking based on ‘ingredients and produce whose characteristics are particularly excellent in our climates, landscapes and waters’. Purity, freshness and

Microfirms in peripheral areas: How can evolutionary economic geography contribute in studies of diversification? A case study from Norway

The article discusses whether and how the emerging approach of evolutionary economic geography is fruitful when researching diversification among microfirms in peripheral regions. The author argues that such microfirms represent a source of heterogeneity that potentially could enrich our understanding of economic evolution. The sources of variation and mechanisms of selection operating among diversifying farmers in Norway are examined and diversifying farms are identified as both microfirms and households. The findings indicate that motivation at household level is the key to successful diversification. Further, the findings confirm that microfirms are not only able to influence their own destiny, but also institutional progress at regional level. The author concludes that the role of microfirms as actors and the possibility for the study of the agency of such actors are the major reasons why evolutionary economic geography is a fruitful approach in researching microfirms in peripheral areas.