Regional Growth Paths: From Structure to Agency and Back

Markus Grillitsch and Markku Sotarauta

No 2018/1, Papers in Innovation Studies from Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research

Abstract: The study of regional growth paths is a key theme in economic geography and of elemental interest for policy makers concerned with regional development. Evolutionary theory explains the path-dependent nature of regional development, and points to its open-ended nature. This paper addresses the interplay between path-dependent, structural forces and the construction and utilization of opportunities through agentic processes. Extending to the evolutionary framework, it is argued that not only history but also perceived future opportunities influence agentic processes in the present and thus shape regional growth paths. Building on recent work about foresightful, strategic and distributed agency, this paper identifies three forms of agency, Schumpeterian innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and place leadership, that call for and necessitate each other in the process of shaping regional growth paths. It is argued that such a holistic view is essential to understand regional development processes and in particular structural change as manifested in economic diversification and new industrial path development.

Keywords: Regional development; agency; path-dependency; Schumpeterian innovative entrepreneurship; institutional entrepreneurship; place leadership; economic diversification; new industrial path development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B52 L16 O30 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2018-01-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-hme, nep-ino, nep-pke and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://wp.circle.lu.se/upload/CIRCLE/workingpapers/201801_grillitsch_et_al.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2018_001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers in Innovation Studies from Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research, Lund University, PO Box 117, SE-22100 Lund, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Torben Schubert ().