Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: A new general-purpose technology has a nearly unlimited number of possible uses. Its emergence is accompanied by a new techno-economic paradigm that suggests using new best practice models of doing business and that challenges existing regional economic structures and innovation arrangements. The ingredients required for adapting to the new paradigm differ across regions and leave existing innovation arrangements in most regions incomplete. Based on a model of long waves of economic development, the meaning of incompleteness of regional innovation arrangements is analyzed. Four cases of firms and branches located in regions that have successfully adapted to the techno-economic paradigm of the past two long waves are studied. The cases demonstrate that the presence of the core factors of an emerging paradigm is not necessarily required for successfully adapting to a new paradigm. While a strict market orientation of innovators is essential, links with agents in other regions, the absorptive capacity of firms, and effective government policies are supportive for overcoming the incompleteness of regional innovation arrangements.
Source: European Planning Studies
Author: Walter Scherrer
Institution: University of Salzburg
Language: English
Subfield: Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Hans Böckler Stiftung
OpenAlex ID: W4412694169