Innovation, which in essence is the generation of knowledge and its subsequent application in the marketplace in the form of novel products and processes, has become the key concept in inquiries concerning the contemporary knowledge based economy. Geography plays a decisive role in the underlying processes that enable and support knowledge formation and diffusion activities. Place specific characteristics are considered especially important in this context, however, more recently investigation into innovative capacity of places has also turned its attention to external knowledge inputs through innovation networks, and increasingly recognize the evolutionary character of the processes that lead to knowledge creation and subsequent application in the marketplace. The chapters that comprise this book are embedded at the intersection of the dynamic processes of knowledge production and creative destruction. The first three contributions all discuss the role of global innovation networks, in the context of territorial and/or sectoral dynamics, while the following two chapters investigate the evolution of regional or metropolitan knowledge economies. The final three contributions adopt a knowledge base approach in order to provide insight into the organisation of innovation networks and spatiality of knowledge flows. This book was published in a special issue of European Planning Studies.

The book provides conceptual and empirical insights into the complex relationship between knowledge flows and regional growth in the EU. The author critically scrutinizes and enhances the RIS (Regional Innovation System) approach, discussing innovation as a technological, institutional and evolutionary process. Moreover, she advances the ongoing discourse on the role of space and technological proximity in the process of innovation and technological externalities. The book closes with an investigation of the role of technological change and knowledge spillovers in the dynamic growth and “catching-up” of EU regions. ​

Economic geographers increasingly consider the significance of history in shaping the contemporary socio-economic landscape, and increasingly believe that experiences and competencies, acquired over time by individuals and entities in particular localities, to a large degree determine present configurations as well as future regional trajectories. Attempts to trace, understand, and investigate the pathways from past to present have given rise to the thriving and exciting sub-field of Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG). EEG highlights the important factors that initiate, inhibit, or consolidate the contextual settings and relationships in which regions and their respective agents, which comprise and shape economic activity and social reproduction, change over time. It has at its core the production and destruction of novelty in space, and the links between innovation and regional economic fortunes. The creation of knowledge, its movement and recombination within different regional ensembles of economic agents and institutions plays a critical role in the evolution of the space-economy. EEG provides a framework to disentangle the complexity of technological change and regional economic development based on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. In only a short time, EEG has established itself as a promising and rapidly evolving research framework with its focus on the driving forces of regional development across various scales and its attempt to translate findings into public policy. This book advances the theoretical foundations of EEG, and demonstrates how EEG utilises and operationalises conceptual frameworks, both established and new. Contributions also point to future research avenues and extensions of EEG, attempting to build stronger ties between theory, empirical evidence, and relevance to policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Regional Studies.

The fields of Economic Geography and International Business share an interest in the same phenomena, whilst each provides both a differing perspective and different research methods in attempting to understand those phenomena. The Routledge Companion to the Geography of International Business explores the nature and scope of inter-disciplinary work between Economic Geography and International Business in explaining the central issues in the international economy. Contributions written by leading specialists in each field (including some chapters written by inter-disciplinary teams) focus on the nature of multinational firms and their strategies, where they choose to locate their activities, how they create and manage international networks and the key relationships between multinationals and the places where they place their operations. Topics covered include the internationalisation of service industries, the influence of location on the competitiveness of firms and the economic dynamism of regions and where economic activity takes place and how knowledge, goods and services flow between locations. The book examines the areas for fruitful inter-disciplinary work between International Business and Economic Geography and sets out a road map for future joint research, and is an essential resource for students and practitioners of International Business and Economic Development.

This is the Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management (ICMSEM) held from July 21-23, 2015 at Karlsruhe, Germany. The goals of the conference are to foster international research collaborations in Management Science and Engineering Management as well as to provide a forum to present current findings. These proceedings cover various areas in management science and engineering management. It focuses on the identification of management science problems in engineering and innovatively using management theory and methods to solve engineering problems effectively. It also establishes a new management theory and methods based on experience of new management issues in engineering. Readers interested in the fields of management science and engineering management will benefit from the latest cutting-edge innovations and research advances presented in these proceedings and will find new ideas and research directions. A total number of 132 papers from 15 countries are selected for the proceedings by the conference scientific committee through rigorous referee review. The selected papers in the first volume are focused on Intelligent System and Management Science covering areas of Intelligent Systems, Logistics Engineering, Information Technology and Risk Management. The selected papers in the second volume are focused on Computing and Engineering Management covering areas of Computing Methodology, Project Management, Industrial Engineering and Decision Making Systems.

Global knowledge flows are becoming a key driver of economic development. This book examines how countries can develop policies to reap the benefits that they bring.

The Handbook of Local and Regional Development provides a comprehensive statement and reference point for local and regional development. The scope of this Handbook’s coverage and contributions engages with and reflects upon the politics and policy of how we think about and practise local and regional development, encouraging dialogue across the disciplinary barriers between notions of ‘local and regional development’ in the Global North and ‘development studies’ in the Global South. This Handbook is organized into seven inter-related sections, with an introductory chapter setting out the rationale, aims and structure of the Handbook. Section one situates local and regional development in its global context. Section two establishes the key issues in understanding the principles and values that help us define what is meant by local and regional development. Section three critically reviews the current diversity and variety of conceptual and theoretical approaches to local and regional development. Section four address questions of government and governance. Section five connects critically with the array of contemporary approaches to local and regional development policy. Section six is an explicitly global review of perspectives on local and regional development from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. Section seven provides reflection and discussion of the futures for local and regional development in an international and multidisciplinary context. With over forty contributions from leading international scholars in the field, this Handbook provides critical reviews and appraisals of current state-of-the-art conceptual and theoretical approaches and future developments in local and regional development.

Today, the world is in the most serious turmoil it has experienced for many centuries. These multiple crises arise from the fundamental mistreatment by capitalist competition of the carrying capacity of the planet. Even before coronavirus, evidently morbid symptoms of over-development led many spatial planners to write of the threat of a new Dark Age. Many advocated a return to policy decentralisation as the Covid-19 crisis demonstrated once again the failure of ‘global controller’ mindsets to manage complex systems successfully. Dislocation: Awkward Spatial Transitions is a critical exploration of where spatial development processes and rules have gone wrong across many economies. The chapters lay out which mindsets have been responsible for this and gives pointers to new practices that aim to ameliorate the effects of past failings. In the first nine chapters, a mapping of key elements of the prevailing omni-crisis are summarised. These range from an exegesis of the Anthropocene, the rise of populism, the transition to neoliberalist anti-planning, and migration as planning issues with pleas for evolutionary change in spatial policy and process dynamics. Finally, a group of chapters explores the flailing as territorial governances tried to plot the rise of creative cities, 4.0 era industry and services, and in the built form, the role of 'starchitects' in city renewal. In the last part, attention is devoted to territorial innovation, knowledge recombination, sustainable mobility and, finally, green entrepreneurship, as necessary elements of a post-coronavirus, climate change mitigation and sustainable mobility set of survival strategies. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal European Planning Studies.

Although China is now the ‘factory of the world’, there is no reason to expect that it will always be content with manufacturing labor-intensive goods for foreign corporations. Scholars must now ask: What is the current level of innovation in China? And how can we face this challenge and renovate industrial production and innovation capacities in developed countries? This edited volume investigates the unique characteristics of Chinese innovation and regional development, China’s policy framework, and the role that transnational corporations play in China’s increasing innovation activities. This book contributes to the heated debate regarding pathways for technology progress and regional development in developing countries, and identifies the ways in which local production networks respond to different configurations of external linkages. Linking patterns of global and local production networks with the trajectories of technology development and regional development allows the authors to theorize and test whether, and how, particular configurations of production networks generate divergent long-term local productivity growth and technological development outcomes. Innovation and Regional Development in China will be of interest to geographers, economists, China specialists, development specialists, and scholars working on innovation and regional development in developing areas and transition countries.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Cities and Regions assembles original contributions from scholars across the world to provide an in-depth analysis of a concept that has the capability to capture a dynamic global economy with entrepreneurial innovation at the crux of its future development.