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This article addresses the role of proximity for knowledge collaboration between dedicated biotechnology firms (DBFs) and related actors. Innovation projects managed by a selection of eight Swedish DBFs are analysed in detail and classified with regard to their specific knowledge characteristics. Based on this classification, explanations to the relative importance of functional and relational proximity to collaborators are sought.The findings indicate that knowledge collaboration in projects characterized by embodied knowledge are more sensitive to functional proximity than projects characterized by embrained and encoded knowledge. The findings also indicate that even though functional proximity is facilitative, global knowledge collaboration is indispensable for most DBFs. The convenience of local collaboration can never replace the extreme requirements of specialized knowledge, which forces them to seek collaborators on a global arena despite the impediments they face in these situations. Policy resources aimed at promoting bioregions are therefore better used to enhance local resources and to provide conditions for DBFs to link up with global sources of knowledge rather than to boost the formation of 'second best' local networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a focus on technological change, this article deals with the issue of how to systematically study regional restructuration. The article aims to study regional restructuration as a case of general economic transformation in an evolutionary economics perspective. However, such open-ended types of analyses are inherently complex. In order to remediate the difficulties of empirical studies and to allow for a more structured comparison of different frameworks, the article outlines and applies a `research tool' to the specific issue of regional restructuration. While such a tool is not a framework, it is intended to more readily compare different theories and frameworks with empirical studies. The tool treats change as involving novelty, renewal and destruction of actors and activities. These changes take place across four different dimensions: technology, organizations, interactions and economic value. The article `tests' the tool by analysing three case-studies of regional restructuration at the municipality and country levels. The issue under scrutiny is how the restructuring of regional industries and technologies takes place, especially as linked to the emergence of new technologies. There are two cases of information technology in West Sweden and one case of biotechnology in Sweden. Three issues relating to the empirical findings are discussed. (1) The tool can help to structure empirical material to analyse complex processes of change over time. This is illustrated, for example, by the changes across dimensions of what is internal and external to regional restructuration. (2) The processes of technological development and of economic exploitation overlap but are differentiated from each other. Hence, a clearer distinction is needed between technology concepts and economic concepts such as `products', `industries', `economic growth' and `regional development'. (3) In emerging technologies, there is clear evidence of the interdependencies between new, old and exit during regional restructuration. These three concluding remarks highlight the need for additional research to link empirical material to theoretical considerations of evolutionary processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]