IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v42y2010i11p2581-2601.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Knowledge, Space, and Economic Governance: The Implications of Knowledge-Based Commodity Chains for Less-Favoured Regions

Author

Listed:
  • Kean Birch

    (Department of Geography and Sociology, University of Strathclyde, Graham Hills Building, 50 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XN, Scotland)

  • Andrew Cumbers

    (Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, East Quadrangle, University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland)

Abstract

As an increasing amount of manufacturing employment has relocated to the Global South, the developed economies of the Global North have sought new ways of competing within the global economy. In part they have done so through the promotion of the so-called ‘knowledge-based economy’ (KBE) constituted by innovations and new markets in high-tech industries like telecommunication, information technology, and the life sciences. A KBE discourse has become a central plank of policy at the national and European levels. This raises a series of questions, however, about the ability of less-favoured regions to compete for knowledge-based activities, given existing conditions of uneven development and the unequal distribution of knowledge assets between regions in the developed economies. In this respect, particularly critical to regional outcomes are the forms of economic coordination and governance that emerge in knowledge-based commodity chains. Engaging with recent debates concerned with global commodity chains, this paper builds on the idea that economic governance is increasingly alliance driven , entailing a diverse set of geographies and trust-based relationships between a variety of organisations that include small innovative firms, large multinational corporations, and national (and subnational) policy actors. These forms of governance open up new opportunities for less-favoured regions, although these continue to be constrained by already existing power relations between regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Kean Birch & Andrew Cumbers, 2010. "Knowledge, Space, and Economic Governance: The Implications of Knowledge-Based Commodity Chains for Less-Favoured Regions," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(11), pages 2581-2601, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:11:p:2581-2601
    DOI: 10.1068/a43191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a43191
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a43191?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ashish Arora & Robert P. Merges, 2004. "Specialized supply firms, property rights and firm boundaries," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 13(3), pages 451-475, June.
    2. Lars Coenen & Jerker Moodysson & Bjørn T. Asheim, 2004. "Nodes, networks and proximities: on the knowledge dynamics of the Medicon Valley biotech cluster," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(7), pages 1003-1018, June.
    3. M. S. Gertler & Y. M. Levitte, 2005. "Local Nodes in Global Networks: The Geography of Knowledge Flows in Biotechnology Innovation," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 487-507.
    4. Fumi Kitagawa, 2004. "Universities and regional advantage: Higher education and innovation policies in English regions," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(6), pages 835-852, September.
    5. Kean Birch & Danny MacKinnon & Andrew Cumbers, 2010. "Old Industrial Regions in Europe: A Comparative Assessment of Economic Performance," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 35-53.
    6. Lazaric Nathalie & Lorenz Edward, 1998. "Trust and Economic Learning: Compte rendu par Cecile Gode-Sanchez," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2-3), pages 353-362, June.
    7. M Gray & E Parker, 1998. "Industrial Change and Regional Development: The Case of the US Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 30(10), pages 1757-1774, October.
    8. Jerker Moodysson & Lars Coenen & Bjørn Asheim, 2008. "Explaining Spatial Patterns of Innovation: Analytical and Synthetic Modes of Knowledge Creation in the Medicon Valley Life-Science Cluster," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(5), pages 1040-1056, May.
    9. Kean Birch, 2008. "Alliance-Driven Governance: Applying a Global Commodity Chains Approach to the U.K. Biotechnology Industry," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 84(1), pages 83-103, January.
    10. Chris Warhurst & Paul Thompson, 2006. "Mapping knowledge in work: proxies or practices?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(4), pages 787-800, December.
    11. Nathalie Lazaric & Edward Lorenz (ed.), 1998. "Trust and Economic Learning," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1127.
    12. N.A. Phelps, 2004. "Clusters, Dispersion and the Spaces in Between: For an Economic Geography of the Banal," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(5-6), pages 971-989, May.
    13. Benjamin Coriat & Fabienne Orsi & Olivier Weinstein, 2003. "Does Biotech Reflect a New Science-based Innovation Regime?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 231-253.
    14. Steven Casper & Hannah Kettler, 2001. "National Institutional Frameworks And The Hybridization Of Entrepreneurial Business Models: The German And Uk Biotechnology Sectors," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 5-30.
    15. Meric S. Gertler & Tara Vinodrai, 2008. "Life Sciences and Regional Innovation: One Path or Many?," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 235-261, August.
    16. Ann Markusen, 1996. "Sticky Places in Slippery Space: A Typology of Industrial Districts," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(3), pages 293-313, July.
    17. Kevin Morgan, 1997. "The Learning Region: Institutions, Innovation and Regional Renewal," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 491-503.
    18. Anders Malmberg & Dominic Power, 2005. "(How) Do (Firms in) Clusters Create Knowledge?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 409-431.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guido Capaldo & Margarida Fontes & Lorella Cannavacciuolo & Pierluigi Rippa & Cristina Sousa, 2015. "Networks Mobilized to Access Key Resources at Early Stages of Biotech Firms: A Comparative Analysis in Two Moderately Innovative Countries," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(7), pages 1381-1400, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Josephine V Rekers, 2016. "What triggers innovation diffusion? Intermediary organizations and geography in cultural and science-based industries," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(6), pages 1058-1075, September.
    2. Dongwoo Kang & Sandy Dall’erba, 2016. "Exploring the spatially varying innovation capacity of the US counties in the framework of Griliches’ knowledge production function: a mixed GWR approach," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 125-157, April.
    3. Jiří Blažek & Pavla Žížalová, 2010. "The Biotechnology Industry in the Prague Metropolitan Region: A Cluster within a Fragmented Innovation System?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 28(5), pages 887-904, October.
    4. Monica Plechero & Cristina Chaminade, 2016. "The role of regional sectoral specialisation on the geography of innovation networks: a comparison between firms located in regions in developed and emerging economies," International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(2), pages 148-171.
    5. Fiorenza Belussi & Silvia R Sedita & Tine Aage & Daniele Porcellato, 2011. "Inward Flows of Information and Knowledge in Low-tech Industrial Districts: Contrasting the ‘Few Firms Gatekeeper’ and ‘Direct Peer’ Models," Chapters, in: Paul L. Robertson & David Jacobson (ed.), Knowledge Transfer and Technology Diffusion, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. V. Rekers, Josephine, 2012. "The European Spallation Source (ESS)and the geography of innovation," Papers in Innovation Studies 2012/9, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    7. André Torre & Frederic Wallet Wallet, 2013. "The role of proximity relations in regional and territorial development processes," ERSA conference papers ersa13p792, European Regional Science Association.
    8. Andrew Cumbers & Danny Mackinnon & Keith Chapman, 2003. "Innovation, Collaboration, and Learning in Regional Clusters: A Study of SMEs in the Aberdeen Oil Complex," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(9), pages 1689-1706, September.
    9. Christian Zeller, 2010. "The Pharma-biotech Complex and Interconnected Regional Innovation Arenas," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(13), pages 2867-2894, November.
    10. Guido Capaldo & Margarida Fontes & Lorella Cannavacciuolo & Pierluigi Rippa & Cristina Sousa, 2015. "Networks Mobilized to Access Key Resources at Early Stages of Biotech Firms: A Comparative Analysis in Two Moderately Innovative Countries," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(7), pages 1381-1400, July.
    11. Liu, Ju, 2014. "How Do Geographical and Organisational Proximity Influence the Relational Pattern of MNCs’ Global Innovation Networks: An In-depth Case Study," Papers in Innovation Studies 2014/16, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    12. Jérome VICENTE (GRES-LEREPS), 2003. "From interaction economics to economic geography : theories and evidences (In French)," Cahiers du GRES (2002-2009) 2003-02, Groupement de Recherches Economiques et Sociales.
    13. Ju Liu & Cristina Chaminade & Bjorn Asheim, 2013. "The Geography and Structure of Global Innovation Networks: A Knowledge Base Perspective," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(9), pages 1456-1473, September.
    14. Franz Tödtling & Markus Grillitsch, 2014. "Types of Innovation, Competencies of Firms, and External Knowledge Sourcing—Findings from Selected Sectors and Regions of Europe," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 5(2), pages 330-356, June.
    15. Franz Tödtling & Michaela Trippl & Joshua von Gabain, 2006. "Clusterentwicklung und -politik im Biotechnologiesektor Wien im Kontext internationaler Erfahrungen," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2006_02, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    16. Heidi Wiig Aslesen & Roman Martin & Stefania Sardo, 2019. "The virtual is reality! On physical and virtual space in software firms’ knowledge formation," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(9-10), pages 669-682, October.
    17. Tsu Lung Chou & Chia-Ho Ching & Shu-min Fan & Jung-Ying Chang, 2011. "Global Linkages, the Chinese High-tech Community and Industrial Cluster Development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(14), pages 3019-3042, November.
    18. Rune Dahl Fitjar & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2014. "When local interaction does not suffice: sources of firm innovation in urban Norway," Chapters, in: André Torre & Frédéric Wallet (ed.), Regional Development and Proximity Relations, chapter 5, pages 195-222, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Liu , Ju & Liefner , Ingo, 2016. "The Joint Influencing Mechanism of Proximities and Knowledge Base on Multinational Companies’ Global Innovation Networks," Papers in Innovation Studies 2016/4, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    20. Boyer, Robert, 2003. "European and Asian integration processes compared," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 0302, CEPREMAP.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:11:p:2581-2601. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.