Abstract
ABSTRACTActive coalitions of regional stakeholders are at the heart of contemporary regional economic development policies, such as Smart Specialisation or Constructing Regional Advantage. These coalitions consist of actors from various organizations such as regional authorities, companies and higher education institutions that come together to achieve common agendas and advance their region. Accordingly, the numerous stakeholders are expected to work together seamlessly, build and implement strategies and thereby deliver regional development. However, by assuming that strategy formulation and implementation is straightforward, the challenges that lie within partnerships and the tensions that may arise between stakeholders can become neglected. Therefore, it is vital to understand tensions that drive towards situations in which strategy-building is not successful and ‘black holes’ of strategy-building emerge. By identifying the tensions between regional partners in the Twente region of the Netherlands, the aim is to understand how such stakeholder tensions affect regional development. It is assumed that by easing or resolving these tensions, stakeholder partnerships can contribute to the successful advancement of their region. The data for this qualitative case study are drawn from both research interviews and secondary sources.
Highlights
There is a common contemporary understanding that regional innovation policies and strategies, systematic and goal-oriented activities in a regional environment are developed and executed by a set of key regional stakeholders (OECD, 2010; Sotarauta & Beer, 2017)
This paper has analyzed the drivers of strategic suboptimality, focusing on those factors that hinder regional stakeholders from formulating and implementing long-term regional development strategies
Since the development of regions is influenced by an almost limitless set of socio-political-economic forces (Storper, 2013), understanding such factors helps in evaluating and/or forecasting the success of coalitions and strategies, which in return affect the achievement of long-term development goals
Summary
There is a common contemporary understanding that regional innovation policies and strategies, systematic and goal-oriented activities in a regional environment are developed and executed by a set of key regional stakeholders (OECD, 2010; Sotarauta & Beer, 2017) In this context of emergent strategy making through a bottom-up approach, the term ‘regional innovation coalition’ (RIC) has been introduced, describing broad-based coalitions of stakeholders from heterogeneous organizations such as regional authorities, firms and universities who work together on the basis of shared. The actors within a coalition are typically overwhelmed when faced with the need to formulate and implement unified regional strategies Factors such as the various priorities and interests of stakeholders can impair the effective and joint development of strategies. It is proposed that one needs to develop a deeper understanding of the aspects that can reduce negative drivers, help the stakeholders to focus on long-term strategic outcomes and bring theories and policies forward
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