Regional Innovation in a Network Economy, 1991

The project "Regional Innovation in a Network Economy, 1991" consisted of two parts; one theoretical part and one empirical part. The theoretical part (“Technological Development, Labour Division and Localization of Businesses. Perspectives for Regional Development”) carried out between 1985 and 1987, gave an overview over new contributions to localization theory and shifted the focus over to the complex labour division that finds place between businesses in different regions. The importance that new technology and the development of products have for the organization of production and degree of specialization was in particular focus. This technological development, as well as more intense international competition and development of new organizational structures, have contributed to the emergence of close bonds between businesses in more or less stable production networks. The project discussed the emergence of this network economy and what it meant for the regional development as a whole. The empirical part of the project (“Technological Proliferation in the Service of Regional Politics”) that took place between the years of 1988 to 1990, had the goal of analysing some of the assertions that were put forward in the theoretical part of the project. The focus of the analysis was especially directed towards the regional proliferation of process technology, what channels of information businesses used in the search for technological knowledge and to what degree businesses used public counselling and financing systems. The results showed no remarkable differences in the use of new technology between different regions in general. The results of a project like this cannot lay the groundwork for development of new policy, there is not enough knowledge for that. At the same time, the theoretical and empirical basis do imply that public efforts to a larger degree should be directed towards linking weak businesses with larger business networks and promote regional cooperation between businesses. It's important that such cooperation arrangements include strong businesses with high technological and market competence. If regional counselling and research foundations are to increase their competence level, closer ties to national resource centres have to be formed.