Abstract
ABSTRACT Path creation is a key concept in economic geography. So far, particularly scholars within evolutionary economic geography have pioneered research on this topic. This paper critically discusses their work and proposes a broader understanding of how new economic activities emerge in regions, which is referred to here as ‘new regional industrial path development’. The paper develops a future research agenda, which stresses the need to develop a multi-actor and multi-scalar approach, to integrate the future into analyses of path development, and to offer a broader view on inter-path relations.
Highlights
Path dependence and path creation are key concepts in economic geography
In relation to these non-firm actors, what resources, other than technological knowledge, do they mobilize, use and create when co-developing new paths? What roles do infrastructure, institutional factors, natural resource endowments, social capital and power play for them? And what are the drivers of these actors to develop new paths other than innovativeness and competitiveness? Concerning the latter question, economic geography (EEG) scholars could benefit from integrating literature on a broader set of drivers of economic activities, such as de-growth, sustainability and social justice, into their explanations (Aoyama, Murphy, & Hanson, 2011)
How does the significance of non-local sources and relations vary between different industries? What are the differences of non-regional sources and relations in new path development in different kind of regions and how are they anchored in the respective types of regions? When do non-local linkages facilitate the growth of a new path and under what conditions do they form barriers to new regional path development? How do inflows and outflows of actors and assets affect new path development? In what ways do non-local institutional environments and policy actions shape new growth paths?
Summary
Path dependence and path creation ( referred to as new path development) are key concepts in economic geography. Other forms of new path development included in their typologies are path importation (referred to as the attraction and anchoring of established industries from outside the region), branching and unrelated path diversification (defined as moves into a new industry based on related or unrelated knowledge combinations) (Grillitsch et al, 2018), and path renewal (considered as major changes of an existing regional path into a new direction based on the infusion of new analytic or symbolic knowledge) It is mainly differences in the adoption of terms that divide the field. We follow Isaksen and Trippl (2016) and others and use the notion of ‘new path development’ as an umbrella term for various forms of the rise of new economic activities in regions
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