Perceptions Relations And Regional Economic Development PDF Download

Firms' innovation processes are assumed to be influenced by firm-internal and external factors, the latter resulting from the impact of the spatial environment of the innovating firm. At the centre of this thesis is the question how the region, more precisely the sum of actors and activities determining the environment of a firm, is perceived by the firms located there, and if those perceptions are related to firms' innovation processes. These topics are analysed in two neighbouring regions belonging to different national contexts: Alsace and Baden.The thesis starts with theoretical reflections referring to innovation and the region, with a special focus on the relationship between innovation, proximity and space. Nowadays, innovation is understood as interactive process, referring for instance to the chain-linked-model of innovation of Kline and Rosenberg (1986). The regional innovation system approach emphasises the interactive and systemic character of innovation. It focuses on the social dimension of innovation involving diverse actors, on proximity relations, the importance of knowledge generation, exchange and use. The innovation system approach is rooted in evolutionary economics and the assumption of bounded rationality of economic agents who act under conditions determined by uncertainty.Economic geography and regional economics aim at exploring the relationship between space and development. In the general framework of globalisation, innovation is of high importance for regions in order to compete and to prosper. Industrial districts and innovative milieus for instance focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, their interrelations and their embeddedness in the territorial context in order to explain the success of local production regimes. While the industrial districts concept emphasises flexible and specialised production modes and vertical integration of firms mainly in handcraft branches, the innovative milieu approach focuses on informal networks, interactive learning processes in innovation-supporting local settings. At the centre of the learning regions approach are creativity, learning and favourable framework conditions for the creation and diffusion of ideas and knowledge. Finally, the hypothesis of knowledge spillover from places of knowledge generation to actors located in close proximity seems to be particularly pertinent in science-based industries, as well as in initial phases of technology creation.The perception perspective adds a subjective and individual dimension to the analysis of firm innovation and the regional environment. Perception can be broadly defined as a reaction following a stimulus from the environment. The information of the external world transferred by the stimulus and the exploitation of this information are the base for a subjective representation of the environment. Psychological perception research focuses on these transfer processes between external environments' characteristics and the subjective representations of individuals. Sociologist approaches are based on the assumption that individuals "construct" their reality, a process that is based on perceptions and cognitive processes. Individuals and firms are considered as systems that interact with their environment. The latter, however, cannot directly influence system-internal processes, but rather "trigger" the evolution of the system elements. Perception geography finally focuses on the spatial behaviour of persons, based on their perceptions of the environment, thus assumes interactions between the individual and the social context - which shapes the mental framework of perception processes - in the territorial context.The analysis aims at investigating innovation-related perceptions that firm managers and persons responsible for research and development have of their environment. The analysis seeks to answer the question if there are region-specific patterns of firms' perceptions, and if perception and firms' innovation behaviours are associated. After a presentation of the socio-economic profiles of the surveyed regions, the innovation characteristics of regional actors and the respective national contexts, regional perceptions with respect to the available workforce, research and technology and the innovation climate, as well as innovation characteristics of the sample firms are analysed. The analysis is based on a survey of 93 innovating firms - manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises and knowledge-intensive business service firms - in the surveyed regions of Alsace and Baden. The sample firms have been analysed in 1995/96 and in 2004/05, which enables to retrace their innovation and perception characteristics in time.The empirical analysis - based on descriptive analyses, supplemented by a multivariate categorical principal components analysis - shows that the Alsatian and the Baden sample firms generally differ in their innovation models. This points at region-specific innovation characteristics. The sample firms' innovation patterns seem to be relatively stable between 1995/96 and 2004/05. Firms' perceptions concerning their regional environment, on the other hand, seem to have a rather evolutive character: There is a tendency among the sample firm representatives towards more decisive assessments concerning the selected characteristics of the regional environment nowadays than about ten years ago. Generally, the integration of the perception perspective enables to get a more complete picture of firm-internal innovation-related activities and their relationships with external innovation supporting actors, institutions, and organisations.