It is widely accepted that firms in peripheral regions benefit to a lesser extent from local knowledge spillovers than firms located in agglomerations or industrial clusters. This paper investigates the extent to which innovative firms in peripheral regions compensate for the lack of access to...

The aim of this working paper is to contribute to the debate on how to identify regions with less developed research and innovation systems. We look at both conceptual and empirical approaches that figure prominently in scholarly work on regional innovation systems. Based on a critical review...

The literature on geography of innovation suggests that innovation outcomes depend on the type of knowledge base employed by firms. While knowledge bases are distinct categories with regards to the nature and the rational of knowledge creation, existing studies also stress that innovation...

The main question that guides this paper is how governments are focusing (and must focus) on competence building (education and training) when designing and implementing innovation policies. With this approach, the paper aims at filling the gap between the existing literature on competences on...

The purpose of this article is to discuss the different types of instruments of innovation policy, to examine how governments and public agencies in different countries and different times have used these instruments differently, to explore the political nature of instrument choice and design...

This paper discusses the role of capabilities and competitiveness for the economic growth of nations. The capability concept is commonly used in analyses of firms, however, as this paper shows, it may also be used at the level of nations. Capabilities at the national level may be defined broadly...

This paper argues that obstruction of agency, intention and interest is a weakness in institutional studies in geography. There is a need to systematically anchor a role for agency in institutionally oriented combinatorial knowledge dynamics studies, and thus to reach beyond snapshots of...

According to the Innovation Union Scoreboard, published by the European Commission every year, Sweden has been, and still is, an innovation leader within the EU and one of the most innovative countries in Europe. In the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2014 (European Union, 2014: 5), Sweden has the...

Firms from emerging countries such as Brazil, India, and China (BIC) are going global, and Europe is attracting around one-third of their direct outward investments. Growing internationalization constitutes an opportunity for technological catch up. In this paper we analyze BIC firms’...

The aim of this article is to examine conceptually and empirically how innovative firms combine knowledge (1) provided by different sources, (2) accessed at different spatial scales, and (3) acquired through different channels. We add to the conceptual debate by contrasting and synthesizing the...