This book provides an assessment of the evolution and dynamics of regional innovation systems (RISs) and the economic and social impact of resulting knowledge spillovers, presenting comparative case studies on the regions of several Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania and Estonia). It analyses RISs on the basis of several dimensions, such as absorption capacity and intellectual capital, and using several methods such as data envelopment analysis, patent network analysis, and weighted sum approach. Further, by looking at the economic and social impact of knowledge spillovers in RISs and networking, it identifies key distinguishing factors, including foreign direct investments, still prevalent centralized decision-making, EU-driven innovation policies and public financing of innovations. Sectoral case studies, e.g. from the automobile, chemical and other hi-tech manufacturing industries, are presented to help readers understand the different types of knowledge spillovers in CEE countries and the evolution and dynamics of RISs, and provide a multifaceted overview of the CEE regions.

This book highlights a number of issues at the leading edge of both research and policy making, such as knowledge generation/production, knowledge distribution/transfer, knowledge spillovers, learning, knowledge management, information logistics, industrial clusters, industrial networks and regional innovation systems. This book will appeal to academics and researchers of knowledge management, technology and innovation and industrial organisation. Policy makers and planners in international organisations, national and regional governments - in particular those dealing with R & D policies, industrial policies and regional policies - will also find much to engage them.

This book begins with a theoretical examination of regional innovation systems, agglomeration economics and knowledge spillovers, before going on to examine the same concepts within an empirical framework. Special emphasis is given to the importance of proximity in the formation of regional innovation systems. It concludes by considering innovation and human capital as determinants of regional economic growth. The concept of knowledge spillovers is used within the book to explain a number of major economic phenomena, including the geographical clustering of inventions; the social returns to R&D that significantly exceed private returns; and the sizeable disproportions that exist between firms in terms of their R&D inputs and outputs. The contributors identify that small firms are responsible for far more product innovations than large firms relative to their measurable knowledge resources. The book also stresses the importance of a catch-up mechanism that sees technological improvement as the combination of two distinct types of activity: innovation and imitation. In this way, the impact of human capital and other types of knowledge acquisition on economic growth is measured. The conclusions of the contributors are invaluably oriented to policy implications. This book will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students of regional science and innovation and knowledge, as well as policymakers.

This volume covers the topic of innovation in three sections, first demonstrating that processes of innovation and technological change are spatially differentiated, second examining the increasing importance of knowledge creation and diffusion, and third raising key issues related to the systems of innovation approach as a conceptual framwork for regional innovation analysis. Includes enlightening conceptual and empirical work on the issue of how knowledge spills over locally.

In recent years there has been growing scientific interest in the triangular relationship between knowledge. complexity and innovation systems. The concept of'innovation systems' carries the idea that innovations do not originate as isolated discrete phenomena, but are generated through the interaction of a number of actors or agents. This set of actors and interactions possess certain specific characteristics that tend to remain over time. Such characteristics are also shared by national, regional, sectoral and technological interaction systems. They can all be represented as sets of [institutional] actors and interactions, whose ultimate goal is the production and diffusion of knowledge. The major theoretical and policy problem posed by these systems is that knowledge is generated not only by individuals and organisations, but also by the often complex pattern of interaction between them. To understand how organisations create new products, new production techniques and new organisational forms is important. An even more fundamental need is to understand how organisations create new knowledge if this knowledge creation lies in the mobilisation and conversion of tacit knowledge. Although much has been written about the importance of knowledge in management, little attention has been paid to how knowledge is created and how the knowledge creation process is managed. The third component of the research triangle concerns complexity.

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. The Handbook considers innovation from fresh perspectives, encompassing topics such as services innovation, inward investment and innovation, creative industry innovation and green innovation. It is divided into seven sections, dealing with regional innovation and growth theory, dynamics, evolution, agglomeration, innovation 'worlds', innovation system institutions, and innovation governance and policy. This definitive compendium on regional innovation and growth will undoubtedly appeal to teachers, students, researchers and practitioners of innovation and growth dynamics worldwide.

Over the past 25 years, the regional innovation system (RIS) approach has become a powerful framework for explaining the uneven geographical distribution of innovation in space as well as for developing policies geared towards boosting the innovation capability of regional economies. This Advanced Introduction provides a critical review and discussion of research on RIS to answer a set of core questions covering the origins of the concept and its theoretical underpinnings to the challenges for future scholarly work on RIS.

First Published in 1999. The process of globalization is shaped and reinforced by a rapidly changing knowledge environment. As economies become less constrained national frontiers they become more geographically specialized. Thus, important elements of the innovation process tend to become regional rather than national. In this new environment, large corporations are weakening their links with their home country, spreading their innovation activities to source different regional systems of innovation. Regional networks of forms are creating new forms of learning and production. The aim of this book is to broaden, both conceptually and empirically, the 'national systems of innovation' approach, developed by Lundvall, Freeman, Nelson and others. While recognizing the creative nature of economic adjustment in a turbulent world and the highly uneven distribution of economic growth, the national systems approach lacks a mechanism by which to understand innovation when realistic unit of analysis is no longer the nation state. Written by leading scholars in the field, this book provides a ground-breaking examination of sub-regional systems of innovation in an interconnected global economy.

International contributors provide the first examination of the growing subject of regional knowledge-economy development. Illustrated by data and 'stylized' accounts, the international contributors chart the evolution of knowledge economies, questioning the way in which they work and criticize accepted theories and inform how places can cope in the knowledge economy. Based in concept on Cooke's Knowledge Economies (Routledge, 2002), Regional Development in the Knowledge Economy is a well-grounded work exploring this increasingly important theme with relevance to innovation systems and related economic development literature.

This book focuses on the importance of geography and space in explaining knowledge flows, entrepreneurship and innovation. During the last few decades spatial perspectives have enjoyed a growing attention outside the specific discipline of geography both in academic economics and among practitioners of policy and planning. This book constitutes a selection of empirical contributions based on data from Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The studies address issues of the characteristics of intra- vs. interregional knowledge flows (Weterings and Ponds), the restructural process when a large pharmaceutical (Pharmacia) closes activities (Dahlgren and Valentin), the different structure of university-industry relationships in three countries with differential types of universities (Broström, McKelvey and Sandström), the locational organization of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in a metropolitan region (Shearmur and Doloreux), the background of individuals in KIBS start-ups (Andersson and Hellerstedt) and give a critical scrutiny of attempts to create Regional Innovation Systems (Nuur, Gustavsson and Laestadius). The contributions thus address relevant contemporary issues regarding the structure of the service economy, the role of academia, and renewal of industries. They provide valuable information, useful to policy-makers, planners and academics.