Päivi Oinas

The Evolution of Technologies in Time and Space: From National and Regional to Spatial Innovation Systems

Complementing existing approaches on national innovation systems (NISs) and regional innovation systems (RISs), the proposed spatial innovation systems (SISs) approach incorporates a focus on the path-dependent evolution of specific technologies as components of technological systems and the intermingling of their technological paths among various locations through time. SISs utilize spatial divisions of labor among several specialized RISs, possibly in more than one NIS. The SIS concept emphasizes the external relations of actors as key elements that transcend all existing systems of innovation. The integrating role of these relations remains inadequately understood to date. This poses a challenge for future research.

Activity-specificity in organizational learning: implications for analysing the role of proximity

By the late 1990s, learning became a key notion in explaining successful regional economic development outcomes. One of the key (implicit or explicit) assumptions in these explanations tends to be that regional – i.e., proximate – relations are most conducive for collective interactive learning. In consequence, accounting for the significance of spatial proximity appears to be at the heart of explaining learning and the creation of competitiveness at the level of regions as well as the firms that they host. A general claim about the role of proximity in learning seems too vague, however. This paper suggests that the significance of proximate relations for learning needs to be unveiled in the case of the various activities carried out in firms. Firms are depicted as utilising activity-specific resources in carrying out their various functions. While other factors obviously also influence processes of learning – such as sector, product and market strategies, type of organization, etc. – this paper puts its main focus on elaborating on the significance of understanding various organizational activities. It aims at pointing out that learning is likely to take place in all of them, regardless of whether proximate or more distant relations are involved. This is believed to provide one step further in an attempt to understand the difference that space makes in organizational learning.

Voices and silences: the problem of access to embeddedness

Abstract The economic geography literature invokes a broad range of socio-cultural factors in explaining the performance of economic actors. The Polanyian–Granovetterian notion of embeddedness is among those often used in this context. This paper discusses epistemological problems involved in doing empirical research on the embeddedness of business firms in the local context. The obvious group of actors addressed in such studies are corporate managers. They can be depicted as agents who derive their power from the corporate resources that they control as well as from the social capital that they gain through their connectedness to a range of social relations. Interviews between academic researchers and corporate managers are viewed as Bakhtinian dialogues. They are analysed in terms of voice and silence, multivoicedness, social language and speech genre. Voices represent managerial elites in their different roles as well as the social relationships in which they are involved. They are resonated in managers’ utterances in interview dialogues. What is not expressed at all or is expressed unclearly or inadequately is captured by the metaphor of silence. Managers’ embeddedness in multiple sets of social relations results in multivoicedness, which leads to the need for the researcher to try to identify the different voices and their social origins. The paper elaborates on the complexities involved in carrying out empirical research on embeddedness. It can also be read as a warning against pursuing such an endeavour without careful conceptual elaboration on the very notion of embeddedness.

Finland: A success story?

Abstract The Finnish economy has done enormously well in recent international comparisons of technological advancement and economic competitiveness; it has reached a notable runner-up position in just a couple of decades, measured by a range of indicators. The paper looks at the process of national scale competitiveness building in a historical perspective and discusses the reasons for the Finnish success. It analyses the main actors and features in the national innovation system and seeks befitting characterizations of the country-specific social capital that are believed to have provided the resource base for the competitiveness of the Finnish technology sector and the economy at large. Lastly, the paper takes up issues related to the sustainability of the system in light of contemporary understanding of what creates competitive advantage in the present-day world economy.

Editorial: Reaching Out to New Territories …

A NEW TEAM ...While taking over the Editorial Board of a journal likeRegional Studies will never be easy, our start greatlybenefited from the excellent shape in which weinherited the journal from the team based in Newcastleupon Tyne. We were provided with avery healthy stockofpapers andspecialissues,andawell-organizedjournaladministration. Specialwords ofthanksshould go out toAndy Pike from Newcastle University, who not onlycoordinated an excellent team of Editors, but alsoarranged for a smooth and gradual transition betweenNewcastle and the new Editorial Board in Utrecht-Nijmegen. We are very happy that Andy Pike willremain in post as an Editor, so that we can benefitfrom his experience and insights in the years to come.On a more substantive point, the Newcastle team,like their predecessors in Cambridge, have successfullywidened the scope and reach of the journal (cf. P

Views on Book Reviews

In the contemporary academia typified by fast science aiming at that ‘one idea’ that is enough to get an article published (BATHELT and GLÜCKLER, 2012, p. 562), why do scholars still do slow science by writing books? Because they have more to say than the one argument required of an article (cf. HALL, 2012; SAXENIAN, 2012; WALKER, 2013); because they have ideas that are too novel, too innovative for the editors and reviewers of the faster – but possibly more conservative (SAXENIAN, 2012, p. 561) – journals; because they want to make young generations think (ROBERTS and WOOD, 2013); and because books allow joining forces (MARTIN, 2013; LEYSHON, 2013) and having fun while doing so (MARTIN, 2013), especially if publishers expect good sales (LEYSHON, 2013). Okay, there might still be reasons to write books. But what about book reviews? Why do journals still publish book reviews and why do book review editors and editorial assistants still spend time chasing reviewers while book reviewing seems nobody’s first priority? And, why should the tradition continue as everything is on the internet before publication already? We can find out about the books. It follows that the purpose and value of book reviews seems ambiguous given the pervasiveness of information due to contemporary information and communication technologies. Indeed, this was the view of an editor of a major publisher whom one of us encountered at a conference book exhibition three years ago: since all information is available, book reviews have less of a role these days.

How to make progress in theories of spatial clustering: a case study of Malmberg and Maskell’s emerging theory

Many social science disciplines suffer from a tradition of tolerating vaguely formulated theoretical claims. The authors report a case study of the explanatory claims made in an emerging knowledge-based theory of clusters proposed by the economic geographers Malmberg and Maskell. In doing so they reinterpret and reconstruct Malmberg and Maskellss theory by applying what is called the ‘contrastive approach’ to explanation from contemporary philosophy of science literature. This approach is proposed as a means of enhancing explanatory clarity and thereby of fostering explanatory progress. The contrastive approach is useful in specifying the exact explanation-seeking questions, and answers to them. Specifying the explanatory claims of a theory also makes it easier to identify questions that are not posed and hence remain unanswered; those constitute a challenge for further theorizing. The case study supports the argument that the precise formulation of explanatory questions promotes explanatory progress.