Global networks, local specialisation and regional patterns of innovation

By Andrea Ascani, Luca Bettarelli, L. Resmini, Pierre-Alexandre Balland. Research Policy, 2020

121 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract A large academic consensus exists on the idea that successful innovative processes are geographically bounded within regions. Nevertheless, the ability of regions to capture and re-use external knowledge is also regarded as a fundamental element to sustain and refine the local profile of specialisation and competitiveness. The present article combines these views to investigate the sources of the regional innovation process, by analysing data on Italian regions over the period 2007–2012. We define global networks based on all the local firms identifiable as global ultimate owners and their foreign subsidiaries. Our main results suggest that both the internal specialisation and the regional external linkages can generate indigenous innovation, but the role of the networks varies substantially according to its density, its degree of complementarity with the specialisation profile, its geographical spread and the specific location of the foreign subsidiaries. Our results, then, support a view of the regional innovation as an interactive process whereby valuable knowledge resources are not only generated within the reach of the local economy, but they are also integrated with external inputs. This contrasts with recent anti-globalisation views according to which the increase in the foreign operations of national companies impoverishes the local economy.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/10e81e8298b87d356886f9cf83fef002c6025b11

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Citations in the corpus

Regional worlds: from related variety in regional diversification to strategic coupling in global production networks (2020, background): “…fewer studies have examined this complex and networked process of knowledge production at both the extra-regional points of origin and the ‘recipient’ home regions of knowledge flows, as in the literature on global innovation networks (e.g., Ascani et al., 2020; Cooke, 2013; Parrilli et al., 2013).”
Complementary interregional linkages and Smart Specialisation: an empirical study on European regions (2020, background): “Interregional linkages are considered to give regions access to external knowledge that can tackle or avoid the tendency of regions to get locked in (Ascani et al., 2020; Bathelt et al., 2004; Boschma & Iammarino, 2009; Camagni, 1991; Eriksson & Lengyel, 2019; Grabher, 1993; Grillitsch & Nilsson,…”