Development In Peripheral Regions Research Articles

Re-routing development in peripheral regions: exploiting anchor institution networks for micro/SME enterprise growth and innovation

PurposeThis study aims to explore the socio-cultural barriers to enterprise in economically disadvantaged communities across five countries: UK, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece.Design/methodology/approachThis study’s EU-funded project took the form of community-based participatory action research. This study focusses on the data from the interviews and network mapping exercises. A total of 40 individual interviews took place, with interviewees from communities with entrenched disadvantage and limited opportunities for employment and education and low rates of business start-ups.FindingsThe research shows that barriers to entrepreneurship can be overcome where a trusted representative (or “mediator”) can act as a bridge, facilitating access to new knowledge and networks. This approach can be used to support micro/SMEs for growth and innovation. In targeting these businesses, policymakers need to recognise the power imbalances between actors and take steps to overcome these, by establishing links with community-based mediators who can act as trusted interlocutors, enabling sustainable relationships to be developed.Originality/valueThis research targets many often hard-to-reach groups and offers insights into the lived experiences of those who often operate at the peripheries. In doing so, it shows how trusted individuals can be used to remove barriers and promote growth, making clear links between theory to practice.

Elite agency in the growth of offshore business services in Romania

Processes of outsourcing and offshoring have driven the changing spatial divisions of labour through foreign investment and development of peripheral regions into key offshore destinations for business services. This paper focuses on the role of elites, transnational and domestic, in the transformation of Romania into a major business services offshoring location in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) over the last two decades. The paper reveals the role of elite agency in connecting domestic resources to business services global production networks (GPNs) in order to drive domestic institutional transformation. A lot has been written about the agency of labour; yet there is a gap in our understanding of the agency of elites, specifically how transnational elites articulate with other elites at the national-, meso- and micro-level and produce institutional changes. Drawing on literature on enclave creation and dual economies, the paper illustrates how the alliance between domestic and transnational elites shaped transformation across the sector by implementing labour market flexibilisation and by crafting a ‘sound’ business environment in terms of infrastructure, investment incentives and bureaucratic framework to emulate institutional conditions of the home country. The development of the Romanian business services sector into an ‘enclave economy’ has become dependent on collaborative networks with domestic universities and intermediary organisations, which played a key role in facilitating foreign investment attraction and linking domestic resources to the needs of multinational firms.

Innovation, scaling-up, and local development in peripheral regions: do establishments scale-up locally?

Abstract A growing number of researchers suggest that there is no necessary connection between local firm-level innovation and local development. There are two connected arguments: first, many analysts suggest local innovation should be understood as a social and institutional process: from this perspective, just focusing on firms is too narrow. Second, regional economists view firms – especially innovative ones – as geographically mobile, tending to move away from regions which don’t offer them adequate support or resources. In this paper, we consider this second approach, exploring the degree to which innovators in peripheral regions purchase local services and scale-up their operations locally – two mechanisms that should connect firm-level innovation to local development. We find that peripheral innovators are more likely to use non-local services; their external expansion is also more likely to occur non-locally. If these results, obtained from cross-sectional analysis of a sparse data-set, are indicative of persistent processes, then they shed light on why firm-level innovation is disconnected from regional development in peripheral regions.

New path capture. Insights from the diversification process in mining regions

Current literature on regional diversification emphasizes the importance of nonlocal linkages for new path development in peripheral regions. This is particularly relevant in mining areas due to the risk of technological lock-in caused by their high specialization in extractive activity. We combined the Evolutionary Economic Geography and Global Production Networks frameworks and suggested the notion of “path capture” to critically assess the prospects of benefiting from path creation by extensive nonlocal linkages in a peripheral region. To understand new path capture, we conducted a case study on Antofagasta, the main mining region in Chile, with a multiscalar perspective. The primary data in our analysis were obtained from in-depth interviews and the secondary data were retrieved from diverse sources. Our results show that mining regions face the risk of creating new paths that are not territorially embedded but captured by external actors.

Change agency and path development in peripheral regions: from pulp production towards eco-industry in Lapland

ABSTRACT In this paper, we identify the patterns of change agency in peripheral regions and the forces shaping them. The following are the main research questions: (a) what are the patterns of local change agency like in peripheral regions and (b) what causes patterns of local change agency? We seek answers to these questions by carrying out a detailed analysis of trinity of change agency in Lapland, Finland. We show how the pattern of it evolves in time, and how, in a crisis, new modes of agency surface and key actors need to learn new ways of intervening. Change agents need to build confidence and mobilize resources, capabilities and power. The empirical study follows a longitudinal single case study design. The empirical data were based on 15 interviews of the national and local/regional development agencies as well as from firms and research/educational organizations. Additionally, the written material from the Internet, relevant journals, related newspaper articles and respective policy documents were analysed. The empirical analysis identifies the main phases of path development in Eastern Lapland, key actors in different phases and their agency.

The Strategic Case for Public Service Obligation Routes in Air Transport: An Enabler of Place-Based Development in Peripheral Regions

The Strategic Case for Public Service Obligation Routes in Air Transport: An Enabler of Place-Based Development in Peripheral Regions

Innovativeness and entrepreneurship: socioeconomic remarks on regional development in peripheral regions

Innovativeness and entrepreneurship: socioeconomic remarks on regional development in peripheral regions

Regional campuses and invisible innovation: impacts of non-traditional students in ‘Regional Australia’

ABSTRACT This article explores the regional development role of university campuses in less-advantaged peripheral regions with attention to the role of students. In the international literature, regional campuses are theorized as playing three types of regional development roles: developing regional human capital, contributing to regional innovation and supporting regional community development. A case study of regional campuses in the Australian context identifies that current policy framing overlooks the innovative potential of regional campuses and their students. This paper opens an agenda for further research on regional campuses’ work with ‘non-traditional’ student cohorts and its impacts on the development of peripheral regions.

Development of peripheral regions in the context of the bioeconomy paradigm

The existence of peripheral regions is a significant challenge for regional development management. These regions have a specific economic and social profile, and their complex development is accompanied by the consideration of a number of factors that have a strong local significance and, in most cases, a dampening effect. The aim of the present study is to follow the trends in the development of a typical peripheral region in Bulgaria, focusing on identifying the potential of the regional economy for transformation to bioeconomic and circular orientation. The object of the study is the region Strandzha-Sakar, and the subject of the study is the potential for bio-economic and circular orientation based on specific traditional assessments, measuring both economic and demographic trends and local economic traditions.

Dichotomy of Declarative and Real Regional Politics in Modern Russia

The main subject of consideration in this article is the problem of regional policy implementation in modern Russia, which is studied on the example of the Russian Far East. The Russian experience of regional politics clearly traces the dichotomy of declarative and real regional politics. The dualism of declarative goals reflected in the public documents of regional policy and real goals naturally leads to the discrepancy between the planned and real results of regional policy. The causes and results of this phenomenon are analyzed in this article. The authors proceed from the fact that there may exist a course hidden from the public, which is not formalized in public documents and does not directly correlate with the acute problems of peripheral region development in any country actively pursuing regional policy. This approach can be applied to any large country where there is a noticeable difference between the goals and results of regional policy.

Dichotomy of Declarative and Real Regional Politics in Modern Russia

The main subject of consideration in this article is the problem of regional policy implementation in modern Russia, which is studied on the example of the Russian Far East. The Russian experience of regional politics clearly traces the dichotomy of declarative and real regional politics. The dualism of declarative goals reflected in the public documents of regional policy and real goals naturally leads to the discrepancy between the planned and real results of regional policy. The causes and results of this phenomenon are analyzed in this article. The authors proceed from the fact that there may exist a course hidden from the public, which is not formalized in public documents and does not directly correlate with the acute problems of peripheral region development in any country actively pursuing regional policy. This approach can be applied to any large country where there is a noticeable difference between the goals and results of regional policy.

Satellite university campuses and economic development in peripheral regions

ABSTRACTSatellite university campuses – whereby established universities decentralise part of their activities, often to areas previously lacking a university – contribute to the diversification of university systems. While satellite campuses, due to their small scale and limited resources, might perform some activities less efficiently than their larger parent universities, we argue that they are uniquely placed to serve the needs of their localities. Based on the case of a satellite campus in North-West Italy, we show that: (i) the campus’ main contribution lies in widening access to higher education to residents who would not attend university in the absence of local provision; (ii) the campus contributes to local development also through research and business and community engagement, and by stimulating local demand for knowledge-intensive services; (iii) research and engagement are more effective for local development where local firms possess relevant absorptive capacity and where there is a favourable institutional framework.

Biotech by bricolage? Agency, institutional relatedness and new path development in peripheral regions

This article develops a framework to understand new industrial path development in peripheral regions based on notions of ‘bricolage’ and ‘institutional relatedness’. While the first stresses the agency of (heterogeneous) actors’ resourcefulness and strategic improvisation co-shaping new industrial paths, the latter highlights the transposition of related institutional settings within regions to amplify (or to limit) the search space for new industries. These arguments are used in conjunction to explain the development of an unlikely biotechnology path in the Portuguese Centro region, analysed since its emergence and over a period of more than 10 years.

Outsiders or Leaders? The Role of Higher Education Institutions in the Development of Peripheral Regions

Policy makers’ interest in higher education institutions (HEIs) as instruments for regional development has increased in recent years, but evidence on the role of HEIs in peripheral regions remains unclear. In this article, we focus on the actual practices of HEIs in such regions. Specifically, we combine theories on the roles of HEIs and regional leadership in a case study of four HEIs (two in the Czech Republic and two in Norway) and their engagement in the development of their host regions. Our analysis shows that the HEIs engage in their host regions through their primary mission of teaching.

Enterprises’ Development in Peripheral Regions: Patterns and Determinants

Enterprises’ Development in Peripheral Regions: Patterns and Determinants

Addressing the disenchantment: universities and regional development in peripheral regions

The paper addresses the rising criticism to innovation policies that have assumed a direct and massive impact of universities in regional economies. It integrates the literature in economics of innovation, higher education, economic geography and regional studies. The paper shows why research excellence is considered a necessary condition for regional impact, why it is not sufficient, and whether there are substitutes. The Additional Material section includes an analysis, based on original data, on research excellence in universities in European peripheral regions. The policy implications call for a new approach to the role of universities.

Exogenously Led and Policy-Supported New Path Development in Peripheral Regions: Analytical and Synthetic Routes

The aim of this article is to explore how new industrial paths emerge and grow in peripheral regional economies. Current conceptualizations of regional path development are based on experiences from core regions and fail to provide satisfactory theoretical explanations of new path-creating activities in peripheral areas. Our conceptual approach combines the notions of path development and knowledge bases, enabling us to distinguish between an analytic and a synthetic route of path creation. We argue that due emphasis should be given to exogenous sources of new path development and policy actions in order to understand how analytical and synthetic routes unfold in peripheral regions. These factors are still underappreciated in prevailing models of path creation. The article contains an analysis of the emergence and evolution of new industries in two peripheral regions in Norway and Austria: the electronics and software industry in Arendal–Grimstad in southeastern Norway, and the software industry in Mühlviertel in Upper Austria. The two industries have developed differently: through the synthetic route based on the emergence and restructuring of manufacturing firms in Arendal–Grimstad and through the analytical route building on the establishment of research facilities in Mühlviertel. Our analysis suggests that the inflow of new analytical and synthetic knowledge from exogenous sources and various types of policy interventions have been vital in sparking the formation of new industrial paths in both regions. The findings clearly challenge uniform, narrowly conceptualized models of industrial evolution and support recent work that advocates a broader theoretical framework to capture exogenously led and policy-supported path-creation processes.

The effect of entrepreneurial orientation on SMEs growth and export in Israeli peripheral regions

This research explores the influence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on SMEs located at core and peripheral regions, by focusing on a single dimension of EO: proactiveness. We conducted a quantitative study of 626 Israeli SMEs. Business growth, as measured by the rate of change in number of employees, was found to be significantly higher in the core region. As expected, proactiveness was found to strongly affect SME growth as well as firm expansion to international markets. Our analysis shows that the difference in business growth between regions can be attributed also to a lower level of ownersʼ proactiveness in peripheral regions since it was found to mediate the effect of peripheral location on firm growth. Differences in proactiveness levels may be explained by the historical development of peripheral regions. Our results have useful implications for policies that aim to promote growth and development in peripheral regions.

Новые тенденции мирохозяйственного развития и Латинская Америка

There are substantial changes in the evolution of world economy and world economic relations. The growth rates of international trade have diminished two-fold, the prices for oil and other commodities have fallen, and the competition on world markets has sharpened greatly. These new trends complicate fundamentally external conditions for the economic development of peripheral regions, especially Latin America. Latin American countries have reached a phase of considerable economic deceleration. Under these circumstances, there is an urgent need for reconsideration of key conclusions made by some Russian experts on the possibilities of the future economic and social growth of Latin America. The author examines the most discussed aspects of the Latin American modern economic situation – the deepening technological gap and slow rates of technological progress, the limited role of internal economic motive forces, the conservation of foreign economic dependence. The future of Latin America’s economic development is uncertain in many respects and will depend greatly on foreign economic conditions. The new world balance opened important additional possibilities for Latin America on world markets. China has converted into the second largest economic partner of the region. But there is a number of complicated problems in their relations that need an urgent regulation. At the same time, the strategic task for Latin America consists in finding of effective ways for further broadening of economic relations with the United States in terms of equality and mutual benefit.

Highways and industrial development in the peripheral regions of China

AbstractThis study estimates how highways affected industrial development in China's peripheral regions between 1998 and 2007, a period during which China experienced rapid growth in highway mileage. Highways between major cities pass through some counties but not others. Based on this difference in counties’ access to highways, we conduct a difference‐in‐difference propensity score matching estimation, with the treatment variables being counties’ highway connection status and their industrial performance before and after being connected to a highway. We find that highways promote industrial development in counties with higher output and greater investment levels. Moreover, highways have differential impacts across industries and regions.