Regional development strategies should be based on sound assessment of regional business potentials and on possibilities to develop the defined potentials in order to gain competitive advantage on other regions. The assessment of the business potentials should include for example, an audit of...

Finland as a society is facing major challenges due to ageing and financial difficulties of municipalities. According to many authorities the Nordic welfare state has come to its end in Finland. Therefore, Finnish municipalities are forced to develop new methods to maintain the good quality of...

A shift in the techno-economic paradigm will affect regions; regions, however, are path-dependent units. This path-dependency often leads to considerable socio-institutional inertia in the process of transformation whereby regions aim to remain competitive in the face of worldwide competition....

Pekkarinen S. and Harmaakorpi V. (2006) Building regional innovation networks: the definition of an age business core process in a regional innovation system, Regional Studies 40, 401-413. Regional innovative capability is a crucial factor in building regional competitive advantage under the...

Today, economic growth is widely understood to be conditioned by productivity increases which are, in turn, profoundly affected by innovation. This volume explores these key relationships between innovation and growth, bringing together experts from both fields to compile a unique Handbook.

Scholars researching innovation are unanimous about the huge innovation potential in combining different fields of knowledge. Structural holes in innovation networks are especially fruitful in fostering new ideas and innovations. One problem in utilizing the innovation potential in structural...