How the organisation of mission arenas regulates attention away from regional problems and solutions: an attention-based view

John-Erik Bergkvist, Anna Essén, Karl Wennberg and Anna Krohwinkel

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2025, vol. 18, issue 3, 465-480

Abstract: Mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs) are promoting the formation of ‘mission arenas’ (MAs) where actors collectively try to address societal ‘wicked problems’. Yet, little is known about how attention — and subsequently time and effort — towards specific problems and solutions, and their geographical dimensions, unfolds within MAs. We conducted a multiple-case study of four MAs mandated and granted public funding to address self-articulated ‘missions’ in public health. We identify four distinct types of MA organisation with different attention-regulating properties that contribute to significant variation in MAs’ flexibility and breadth of attention. We propose a model explicating how all four MA organisations regulate attention in ways that impede future attention to regional problems and solutions — a finding that serves to problematise assumptions about attention in the MOIP literature.

Keywords: mission-oriented innovation policy; mission arenas; attention-based view; wicked problems; transformative innovation policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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