Innovation and Regional Development

Innovation is considered to be highly localized process. It does not appear in space uniformly, but is predominantly spatially concentrated (Crevoisier, 2004). A number of diverse theoretical and empirical frameworks have been developed to analyze spatial dimension of innovation. The theoretical approach to the relationship between innovation and local spaces was initially demonstrated in the concepts of ‘new industrial districts’ and ‘innovative milieu’. The first of them, inspired by the Marshall’s industrial district, was introduced by Becattini (Sforzi, 2015) to emphasize the dynamic linkages between the socio-cultural features of a productive community and the rate of growth of both its productivity and innovativeness (Becattini, 2002). Many theoretical considerations and empirical contributions reveal the impact of belonging to industrial districts on innovation performance (Boix et al., 2018; Boix-Domenech et al., 2019; Cainelli, 2008; Cainelli & De Liso, 2005; Muscio, 2006; Parra-Requena et al., 2020). The existence of dynamic efficiency in industrial districts in the form of positive innovation differentials with regard to the economy average, assigned to the existence of Marshallian external economies (economies of localization) is described by Boix and Galletto (2009) as an ‘I-district effect’.