The performance of firms within industrial clusters has been the subject of a multitude of studies. The organizational attributes inherited by spinoffs from parent firms is one explanation behind performance premiums. This paper examines the relationship between a spinoff’s network and its geographic location in an industrial cluster. We hypothesize that there is a negative relationship between a spinoff’s network efficiency and its distance from the cluster’s centroid. Although recent literature infers that the transmission of knowledge in industrial clusters is accomplished via inherited network ties, this has not been directly measured. This paper aims to fill that research gap. We find that, after controlling for firm size, parent size and age, there is indeed a statistically significant and negative relationship between network efficiency and geographic distance to a cluster’s core. 

In the new paradigm of ‘transformative’ or ‘mission-oriented’ innovation policy, which addresses broad societal challenges, policy makers are given a large responsibility for setting or shaping the direction of socio-technical transitions. However, the literature has so far not provided much concrete advice on how to achieve directionality in practice. The main argument of this conceptual article is that a more detailed approach is needed to better understand the challenges policy makers might face when they attempt to translate societal goals into more concrete and actionable policy agendas. It identifies and discusses eight analytically derived directionality challenges: handling goal conflicts, defining system boundaries, identifying realistic pathways, formulating strategies, realising destabilisation, mobilising relevant policy domains, identifying target groups, and accessing intervention points. To illustrate these challenges, the article uses examples from the implementation of the Swedish climate goal in the process industry.

In spite of a long-standing interest in the distribution of knowledge spillovers from university research, there is only limited theoretical understanding of if and when opportunities to interact with a research university constitute a significant force of attraction for globally mobile investment in R&D. Based on an empirical investigation of the benefits of interaction with universities, this paper proposes an analytical framework and four ideal types of strategy for localised collaboration between R&D subsidiaries and universities. This taxonomy, which largely transcends industry sectors, and the illustrative cases presented in this paper provide insights into the potential scope for localised university-industry interaction from the perspective of multinational enterprises. By connecting the empirical results to the question whether these benefits are significant enough to enhance a region's attractiveness as a location for R&D, we are able to develop a better understanding of the alternative strategies for policymakers and university leaders interested in stimulating such linkages. 

The aim of this paper is to compare the socio-spatial patterns of innovation and knowledge linkages of a biopharmaceutical and an agro-food biotech cluster. Dissimilarities can be expected based on differences in terms of historical technological regimes and sectoral innovation system dynamics between the agro-food and pharmaceutical industries in general and particularly the distinctive analytical (science-based) knowledge base of biopharmaceuticals in contrast with the more synthetic (engineering-based) knowledge base of agro-food biotechnology. Drawing on bibliometric data and case material the study compares two representative bioregions: a biopharmaceutical cluster in Scania, Sweden and an agro-food biotech cluster in Saskatoon, Canada. The empirical study supports the theoretical expectations and shows that knowledge dynamics in the agro-food cluster are more localized than in the biopharmaceuticals cluster. It is important, however, to acknowledge that these differences are relative. Both sectors display local and non-local patterns of collaboration following the general pattern for biotechnology.

This paper addresses the role of incumbent firms in driving transitions that entail multiple sectors, conditioned by multiple regimes. We analyse the case ‘HYBRIT’, a radical innovation venture championed by three incumbents from the steel and energy regimes. We investigate what conditions the incumbents’ agency and how they enacted their agency targeting restructuring of the regime elements–actors, institutions, and materiality. We find that eight endogenous and exogenous factors coincide and condition the incumbents’ agency, from which they act in a novel direction of change. We contribute by showing how the collaboration within and across regimes enabled the accomplishment of actions that would have been challenging for individual incumbents to achieve alone. In this setting of scale-intensive industries, incumbents have characteristics that give them a significantly larger capacity to stimulate change than newcomers. The timing and combination of endogenous and exogenous factors, enabling incumbents to collectively drive a transition. 

For some time now, the research focusing on Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) has been very active. Observing that knowledge as a production factor is only becoming more and more pronounced, this focus is well-grounded. It is therefore important to examine how these knowledge-hubs gain and propagate their knowledge. We hypothesize that KIBS (as many other sectors) benefit from intra-industry knowledge spillovers facilitated by geographical concentration. Our focus is the innovative capacity of KIBS, which we measure through trademarks registered by KIBS firms. While there may be several mechanisms facilitating knowledge spillovers, we can identify local intra-sectoral labor mobility as one. Accessibility measures are used to assess the geographical attenuation of the spillover effects. Results show that the distance decay of spillovers is fast. Only local concentrations of KIBS seem to be of importance. Over longer distances, we instead observe negative consequences for trademarking, indicating possible spatial competition effects.

A longstanding research tradition assumes that endogenous technological development increases regional productivity. It has been assumed that measures of regional patenting activity or human capital are an adequate way to capture the endogenous creation of new ideas that result in productivity improvements. This process has been conceived as occurring in two stages. First, an invention or innovation is generated, and then it is developed and commercialized to create benefits for the individual or firm owning the idea. Typically these steps are combined into a single model of the "invention in/productivity out" variety. Using data on Gross Metropolitan Product per worker and on inventors, educational attainment, and creative workers (together with other important socioeconomic controls), we unpack the model back to the two-step process and use a SEM modeling framework to investigate the relationships among inventive activity and potential inventors, regional technology levels, and regional productivity outcomes. Our results show almost no significant direct relationship between invention and productivity, except through technology. Clearly, the simplification of the "invention in/productivity out" model does not hold, which supports other work that questions the use of patents and patenting related measures as meaningful innovation inputs to processes that generate regional productivity and productivity gains. We also find that the most effective measure of regional inventive capacity, in terms of its effect on technology, productivity, and productivity growth is the share of the workforce engaged in creative activities.

Research demonstrates that digital technologies stimulate industrial transformation by enabling new interdependencies with firms outside and across firm and industry boundaries. However, we know little about the degree of novelty and breadth of digital technologies that have the potential to transform industries. Understanding the degree of novelty (spanning from radical to incremental) and breadth (spanning from one sector to multiple sectors) of digital technologies is important for measuring their impact on industrial transformation. Through a topic modelling research approach on autonomous vehicle technology patents from firms operating in Sweden and a confirmatory survey with the inventors of those patents, this paper reveals 26 digital technology topics that are transforming the automotive industry. The digital technology topics are distributed across four ideal-typical technology categories for transformation: augmenting, spanning, transforming, and disrupting. This study illustrates the value of studying digital technologies’ transformative nature using an integrating framework; it reveals that digital technologies in the automotive industry have mainly incremental characteristics but that these characteristics provide necessary preconditions for the few more radical technologies to achieve their potential in transforming the industry.

This paper studies the influence of metropolitan externalities on productivity for different types of long-run R&D engagement based on information from the Community Innovation Survey. We apply a dynamic general method of moments model to a panel of manufacturing and service firms with different locations in Sweden, classified as a metropolitan region, the largest metropolitan region, a metropolitan city, the largest metropolitan city and a nonmetropolitan area. This analysis generates three distinct results. First, the productivity premium associated with persistent R&D is close to 8 per cent in nonmetro locations and about 14 per cent in the largest city. Second, a firm without any R&D engagement does not benefit at all from the external milieu in metro areas. Third, no productivity premium is associated with occasional R&D effort regardless of the firm's location.

Adding to approaches highlighting network dynamics as a basis for regional economic development, increased attention is paid to institutions as contextual factors contributing to explaining how and why economies change. Research has shown that firms tend to react differently to the same institutional configurations, with the main explanatory factors being their sectoral backgrounds and intra-firm characteristics. This study adds to these insights by examining a regional economy in France, that of Cognac, in which 300 firms are operating under homogeneous institutional preconditions. Despite these similarities, we identify different development trajectories from the 1990s onwards. Our observations illustrate how firms’ responses to external change diverge and bring them on different trajectories due to different positions in the industry hierarchy and different experiences and capabilities among individuals within firms. The study contributes to the better understanding of mechanisms of path dependence, which have gained wide recognition in the literature in the recent decades.

This paper provides novel empirical insights into the Porter hypothesis (PH) and its dynamic nature. The PH posits that well-designed environmental regulations induce eco-innovations at polluting firms that improve both their environmental and business performance via ‘innovation offsets.’ We conduct an econometric test of this proposition, using Swedish pulp and paper plants as empirical application. Swedish environmental regulation of polluting industries provides an interesting case because it has been praised, due to containing elements of ‘well-designed’ regulations, for being conducive to accomplishing the ‘win-win’ situation of mutual environmental and economic benefits. The empirical results indicate that flexible and dynamic command-and-control regulation and economic incentive instruments have induced innovation offsets through improved energy efficiency. Our study bears important implications: empirical tests of the PH that do not account for its dynamic nature, and that do not measure ‘well-designed’ regulations, might provide misleading conclusions as to its validity.