Governance and the Entrepreneurial Economy: A Comparative Analysis of Three Regions

Abstract

The increasing number of regional concentrations of entrepreneurial activities and the shift of government–business relations to regional contexts have rendered regional governance arrangements of increasing importance. Drawing on the extensive literature on comparative models of national economic governance, this paper identifies three regional governance models: partnership, state–institutional coordination, and fragmentation. The three models are explored in the context of the entrepreneurial economy in three regions. The paper finds that regional governance arrangements differ from national varieties in the partnership and in the state–institutional models but not in the fragmented model. The difference is shown to involve the types of actors participating in governance arrangements and the types of economic activities promoted by the political–institutional context.