IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa03p166.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regional Technolgy Policy and Factors Shaping Local Innovation Networks in Small German Cities

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Gebauer
  • Chang Woon Nam
  • Rüdiger Parsche

Abstract

Local innovation networks have been considered to be particularly important to innovation and technological change and to the growth prospects of regions and cities in Germany. Accordingly, innovation is a process that results from various (economic and social) interactions of different institutions located in a given region. Consequently, when analysing the local (or regional) innovation system, one should not only investigate the (horizontal and vertical) relations among firms but also the contacts with universities and other research institutions. Furthermore, the role of government agencies and interest groups that provide financial support as well as commercial and technical information should also be taken into account in the context of the regional innovation system. However, the review of relevant theoretical and empirical investigations related to the German experience shows that such innovation and R&D cooperation networks appear to be less significant than expected. In particular those high-tech firms in small-sized German cities have a direct access to the international innovation network, which quite often has made a more crucial contribution to their business performances than the regional and national ones have done. In general various regional technology policy measures adopted in German states (provision of research infrastructure, establishment of technology centres, innovative SME support programmes, etc.) have been more successful in already economically better-off large cities but failed to establish a significant intra-technological cooperation among partners in the rather less-developed areas which lack sufficient know-how, a socio-cultural and institutional infrastructure and a certain degree of entrepreneurial tradition. Apat from offering a critical review of relevant theoretical and empirical research, this study introduces the present regional technology and R&D promotion policies in German states and examines the distinctive characteristics of the local innovation system, emphasising the experiences of two small cities, Landshut and Bochum.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Gebauer & Chang Woon Nam & Rüdiger Parsche, 2003. "Regional Technolgy Policy and Factors Shaping Local Innovation Networks in Small German Cities," ERSA conference papers ersa03p166, European Regional Science Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa03p166
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa03/cdrom/papers/166.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fritsch, M. & Lukas, R., 1998. "Innovation, Cooperation, and the Region," Papers 98/1, Bergakademie Freiberg, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    2. Knut Koschatzky & Rolf Sternberg, 2000. "R&D Cooperation in Innovation Systems—Some Lessons from the European Regional Innovation Survey (ERIS)," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 487-501, August.
    3. Audretsch, David B & Feldman, Maryann P, 1996. "R&D Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 630-640, June.
    4. Luc Anselin & Attila Varga & Zoltan Acs, 2008. "Local Geographic Spillovers Between University Research and High Technology Innovations," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 9, pages 95-121, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    6. Cristoforo S. Bertuglia & Manfred M. Fischer & Giorgio Preto (ed.), 1995. "Technological Change, Economic Development and Space," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, number 978-3-642-79760-6, december.
    7. Reinhold Grotz & Boris Braun, 1997. "Territorial or Trans-territorial Networking: Spatial Aspects of Technology-oriented Cooperation within the German Mechanical Engineering Industry," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 545-557.
    8. D. Oh & I. Masser, 1995. "High-tech Centres and Regional Innovation: Some Case Studies in the UK, Germany, Japan and Korea," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Cristoforo S. Bertuglia & Manfred M. Fischer & Giorgio Preto (ed.), Technological Change, Economic Development and Space, chapter 14, pages 295-333, Springer.
    9. Michael Fritsch, 2001. "Co-operation in Regional Innovation Systems," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(4), pages 297-307.
    10. Audretsch,David B. & Thurik,Roy (ed.), 1999. "Innovation, Industry Evolution and Employment," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521641661, January.
    11. Pavitt, Keith & Robson, Michael & Townsend, Joe, 1987. "The Size Distribution of Innovating Firms in the UK: 1945-1983," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 297-316, March.
    12. Michael Reinhard & Heinz Schmalholz, 1995. "Technologietransfer in Deutschland - Stand und Reformbedarf," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 48(33), pages 16-24, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pamela Mueller, 2005. "Exploring the Knowledge Filter - How Entrepreneurship and University-Industry Relations Drive Economic Growth," ERSA conference papers ersa05p610, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Thomas Doring & Jan Schnellenbach, 2006. "What do we know about geographical knowledge spillovers and regional growth?: A survey of the literature," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(3), pages 375-395.
    3. Block, J.H. & Spiegel, F., 2013. "Family firm density and regional innovation output: An exploratory analysis," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 270-280.
    4. Döring, Thomas, 2005. "Räumliche Externalitäten von Wissen und ihre Konsequenzen für die Ausgestaltung des Finanzausgleichs," Forschungs- und Sitzungsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Färber, Gisela (ed.), Das föderative System in Deutschland: Bestandsaufnahme, Reformbedarf und Handlungsempfehlungen aus raumwissenschaftlicher Sicht, volume 127, pages 93-120, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    5. Bode, Eckhardt, 1999. "Localized knowledge spillovers and regional employment growth: evidence from Germany," Kiel Working Papers 938, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Paulo Santos & Aurora A.C. Teixeira & Ana Brochado, 2006. "The ‘de-territorialisation of closeness’ - a typology of international successful R&D projects involving cultural and geographic proximity," FEP Working Papers 222, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    7. Matthias Firgo & Peter Mayerhofer, 2015. "Wissens-Spillovers und regionale Entwicklung - welche strukturpolitische Ausrichtung optimiert des Wachstum?," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 144, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    8. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    9. Michael Fritsch, 2003. "Does R&D-Cooperation Behavior Differ between Regions?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 25-39.
    10. Lawrence A. Plummer & Zoltán J. Ács, 2015. "Localized competition in the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship," Chapters, in: Global Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Incentives, chapter 8, pages 145-160, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Ron A. Boschma & Anet B.R. Weterings, 2005. "The effect of regional differences on the performance of software firms in the Netherlands," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(5), pages 567-588, October.
    12. Autant-Bernard, Corinne & Massard, Nadine, 2000. "Scientific Interactions, Geographic Spillovers And Innovationan Empirical Study On The French Case," ERSA conference papers ersa00p131, European Regional Science Association.
    13. GUILLAIN, Rachel & HURIOT, Jean-Marie, 1999. "How information shapes cities: theory and facts," LATEC - Document de travail - Economie (1991-2003) 1999-05, LATEC, Laboratoire d'Analyse et des Techniques EConomiques, CNRS UMR 5118, Université de Bourgogne.
    14. Varga, Attila, 2004. "Az egyetemi kutatások regionális gazdasági hatásai a nemzetközi szakirodalom tükrében [Regional economic effects of university researches in the light of international literature]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 259-275.
    15. Zoltán J. Ács & Pontus Braunerhjelm & David B. Audretsch & Bo Carlsson, 2015. "The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship," Chapters, in: Global Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Incentives, chapter 7, pages 129-144, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Gerben Van Der Panne & Wilfred Dolfsma, 2003. "The odd role of proximity in knowledge relations: high‐tech in the Netherlands," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 94(4), pages 453-462, September.
    17. Feldman, Maryann P. & Kogler, Dieter F., 2010. "Stylized Facts in the Geography of Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 381-410, Elsevier.
    18. Haifeng Qian, 2018. "Knowledge-Based Regional Economic Development: A Synthetic Review of Knowledge Spillovers, Entrepreneurship, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 32(2), pages 163-176, May.
    19. Gerald A. Carlino & Satyajit Chatterjee & Robert M. Hunt, 2001. "Knowledge spillovers and the new economy of cities," Working Papers 01-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    20. Gerald A. Carlino & Robert M. Hunt, 2009. "What explains the quantity and quality of local inventive activity?," Working Papers 09-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa03p166. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.