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The role of powerful incumbent firms: shaping regional industrial path development through change and maintenance agency

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  • Simon Baumgartinger-Seiringer

Abstract

This article seeks to advance perspectives on powerful incumbent firms in (new) regional industrial path development. Drawing on recent insights from Transition Studies, it is argued that this – hitherto often neglected – actor group plays a crucial role in shaping the pace and direction of regional path development through agency oriented towards both change and maintenance. Building on systemic perspectives at the intersection of evolutionary economic geography and innovation studies, particular emphasis is placed on incumbent firms’ interventions to reconfigure or stabilize their surrounding regional innovation system to support their intentions. To this end, this article examines how incumbents exert their influence through various forms of power as means by which they promote or hinder regional industrial change. Empirically, the role of incumbent firms in a traditional automotive industry in Austria is investigated. It is shown how they leverage their power to propel the industry’s digitalization and suppress its decarbonization.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Baumgartinger-Seiringer, 2021. "The role of powerful incumbent firms: shaping regional industrial path development through change and maintenance agency," PEGIS geo-disc-2021_07, Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwpeg:geo-disc-2021_07
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    Cited by:

    1. Maximilian Benner, 2021. "System-level agency and its many shades: How to shape the system for path development?," PEGIS geo-disc-2021_10, Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    regional restructuring; path development; incumbents; agency; automotive industry; power;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

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