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Over the last few years, there has been a growing concern among academics and practitioners about the slow pace in which sustainability transformations unfold. While most socio-technical transformations tend to happen over extended periods, research shows that unless some dramatic changes are introduced, we are risking damaging the critical earth systems that sustain human life. In this context, understanding why and how transformations happen at a much faster pace in certain places than in others is of crucial importance. This paper investigates the rapid transformation of Panzano, from traditional wine production to organically produced wine. Using a combination of document analysis, participant observation, and face to face interviews in Panzano in 2019, this article examines the role of the territorially embedded innovation ecosystems facilitating this fast transformation. The study looks at place based-structural preconditions and different forms of agency at different stages in the transformation. Our findings illustrate that a place-based agency is paramount for accelerating sustainability transformations.

Scientific advance and innovation are major sources of economic growth and are crucial for making development socially and environmentally sustainable. A critical question is: Will private enterprises invest sufficiently in research technological development and innovation and, if not, to what degree and how should governments engage in the support of science, technology, and innovation? While neoclassical economists point to market failure as the main rationale for innovation policy, evolutionary economists point to the role of government in building stronger innovation systems and creating wider opportunities for innovation. Research shows that the transmission mechanisms between scientific advance and innovation are complex and indirect. There are other equally important sources of innovation including experience-based learning. Innovation is increasingly seen as a systemic process, where the feedback from users needs to be taken into account when designing public policy. Science and innovation policy may aim at accelerating knowledge production along well-established trajectories, or it may aim at giving new direction to the production and use of knowledge. It may be focused exclusively on economic growth, or it may give attention to impact on social inclusion and the natural environment. An emerging topic is to what extent national perspectives continue to be relevant in a globalizing learning economy facing multiple global complex challenges, including the issue of climate change. Scholars point to a movement toward transformative innovation policy and global knowledge sharing as a response to current challenges. (Less)

This paper investigates commonalities and differences in firm-level determinants of internationalization of production (production-related investments or PFDI) and innovation (technology-driven investments or TFDI) by multinational enterprises. Our database is based on a cross-country survey which includes firms within Automotive, Agro-processing, and Information and Communication Technology sectors from both developing and advanced economies. Our results show that despite some differences, most of the determinants affect in a similar manner both the PFDI and TFDI which rather contradicts recent arguments claiming significant differences between the two. More interestingly, however, we found that institutional determinants such as policies related to foreign direct investments play almost no role in internationalization process of firms while managerial (internal to the firm) determinants had a far greater impact.

The chapter discusses the spatial aspects of the increased globalization of innovation, analysing both the region’s role in influencing the propensity of actors to engage and to play different roles in global innovation networks (GINs). Until now, different concepts such as global value chain (GVC), global production network (GPN) and GIN have been used to explain the increase globalization of innovation activities. The authors provide a critical overview of these concepts. The involvement of new actors (not just multinationals) from different locations (not just from developed economies) reveal the limitations of frameworks such as GVC and GPN in explaining the structure and dynamics of global networks. The chapter highlights how the concept of GIN, when properly addressed, can lead to a better understanding of the micro and meso dynamics of the new phenomena that arise from the globalization of innovation activities. (Less)

This paper explores the relationship between competences and global innovation networks in the Swedish ICT industry. More specifically this paper combines econometric techniques and case study analysis to capture the interplay between firm level competences (competences as enablers), the availability of competences in the host country (competences as drivers), and the specific strategy of the firm for engaging in global innovation networks. Our results show that for Swedish ICT firms, firm-level competences are an important enabler for globalization of innovation, particularly for offshoring. Home regional competences also play an important role for the mode of globalization of innovation that firms engage in. Host regional competences are important drivers for globalization of innovation, particularly for offshoring and collaboration. The results suggest that the breadth and depth of competences available in host countries actually determine the type of innovation activities that the subsidiary performs,...

The aim of this article is to discuss the role of intermediate organizations in supporting different forms of interactive learning and capability building in small-scale business initiatives in emerging innovation systems in developing countries, using data from Tanzania and El Salvador. It is argued that different types of intermediate organizations have played key roles in linking marginalized economic actors to sources of knowledge and other resources that are essential for capability upgrading and innovation in both traditional and more differentiated economic activities. They thus play an important role in linking innovative activity, to maintaining and upgrading the quality of existing jobs in crisis, generating new ones where opportunities arise, and providing income crucial for family well-being in countries characterized by low levels of human development and high levels of inequality.

Access to global innovation networks (GINs) has been unequal across the regions of the world. While certain regions are considered knowledge hubs in GINs, others still remain marginalized; this points to the role of regional innovation systems (RISs) in the emergence and development of GINs. Using firm-level data collected through a survey and case studies in 2009–2010, this paper systematically compares the patterns of global networks in the information and communications technology industry in a selection of European, Chinese and Indian regions. The results show that GINs are more common in regions which are not organizationally and institutionally thick, suggesting that GINs may be a compensatory mechanism for weaknesses in the RIS.

In the last decade, we have witnessed an unprecedented growth in the globalisation of innovation activities and more specifically, of global innovation networks (GINs) extending into middle-income countries. However, hitherto most of the literature is either theoretical or based on a handful of cases. We do not know what are the different forms of openness through networks in which firms participate whether in terms of the various degrees of global scope, innovativeness and network scope or other key characteristics. This exploratory paper provides empirical evidence of the different forms of openness through global innovation networks used by firms located in mature and emerging innovation systems. The paper relies on survey-based firm-level data collected in five European countries plus Brazil, South Africa, India and China.

Since the seminal work of Archibugi and Michie (1995) on the globalization of innovation, several authors have attempted to understand the complex relationship between innovation and internationalization. However, most tend to focus on industrialized countries, just one mode of globalization of innovation and often one traditional indicator of innovation, such as patents or R&D investment, thus ignoring the complexity and multiple aspects of the phenomenon. This paper explores empirically the linkages between different modes of globalization of innovation and firms' micro-characteristics in two of the fastest growing emerging economies. We analyze three distinct modes of globalization of innovation: the global exploitation of innovation, the global sourcing of technology and global research collaboration. We then use primary data from Chinese and Indian firms belonging to three sectors (automotive components, software and green biotech) to explore the differences in the ways in which the firms located in these two economies globalize their innovatiton activities.

Part 1: The business model of industrial districts and clusters in the knowledge-based view and in the social network analysis perspective 1. The international fragmentation of the industrial districts value chain between relocation and global integration Fiorenza Belussi and Alessia Sammarra 2. Situated business networks facing globalisation: a critical assessment Fiorenza Belussi and Silvia Sedita 3. Boundary spanning strategies of industrial districts: the impact of absorptive capacity Tine Aage Part 2: Industrial districts and clusters in the global value chains. A taxonomical exercise on the path-dependent avenue of Marshallian/Satellite/Evolutionary/Science districts 4. Industrial districts and clusters in the global value chain: the cases of Saonara, Pistoia and Boskoop Fiorenza Belussi and Silvia Rita Sedita 6. The evolution of the Montebelluna sportswear district through knowledge creation, ICT adoption, and international commercial nets Fiorenza Belussi 7. A "low road" to competitiveness in the global apparel industry: the case of the Vibrata Valley district Alessia Sammarra 8. From proximity advantages to organisational advantages through the global extension of an industrial district: the case of the footwear district of Verona Fiorenza Belussi 9. Facing globalisation through inward and outward investments and international research collaboration: evidence from the biomedical district of Mirandola Fiorenza Belussi and Alessia Sammarra 10. Moving immigrants into western industrial districts: the "inverse" delocalisation of the leather tanning district of Arzignano Fiorenza Belussi and Silvia Rita Sedita 11. The clustering R&D through the institutional mechanisms in the Paris Region Najoua Boufaden, Sofiene Lourimi and Andre Torre 12. Transferring entrepreneurialship: the making of the cluster of Timisoara Fiorenza Belussi 13. How deeply embedded is the "footwear agglomeration" in Timisoara? Simona Montagnana 14. The Evolution of External Linkages and Relational Density in the Tuscan Leather Industry Lorenzo Bacci and Mauro Lombardi and Sandrine Labory 15. Local development and innovation policies in China: the experience of Guangdong specialised towns Annalisa Caloffi 16. Industrial Clusters in the Brazilian Ceramic Tile Industry and the New Challenges of the Competition in the Global Value Chain Renato Garcia and Gabriela Scur 17. The localisation of multinationals in Italian clusters between Marshallian and urban externalities Nicoletta Tessieri

This paper is concerned with the changing role of regional innovation systems and regional policies in supporting the transition of indigenous firms in developing countries from competing on low costs towards becoming knowledge providers in global value chains. Special attention is paid to policies supporting the emergence and development of the regional innovation system in this transition process. Regional innovation systems in developing countries have very recently started to be conceptualised as specialized hubs in global innovation and production networks (Asheim, B., Coenen, L., Vang-Lauridsen, J., 2007. Face-to-face, buzz and knowledge bases: socio-spatial implications for learning, innovation and innovation policy. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 25 (5), 655–670; Chaminade, C., Vang, J., 2006a. Innovation policy for small and medium size SMEs in Asia: an innovation systems perspective. In: Yeung, H. (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Asian Business. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham; Maggi, C., 2007. The salmon farming and processing cluster in Southern Chile. In: Pietrobello, C., Rabellotti, R. (Eds.), Upgrading and Governance in Clusters and Value Chains in Latin America. Harvard University Press). A specialized hub refers to a node in a global value chain that mainly undertakes one or a few of the activities required for the production and development of a given good or service or serves a particular segment of the global market. In global value chains, firms in developing countries have traditionally been responsible for the lowest added-value activities. However, a few emerging regional innovation systems in developing countries are beginning to challenge this scenario by rapidly upgrading in the value chain. There is, however, still only a poorly developed understanding of how the system of innovation emerges and evolves to support this transition process and what the role of regional innovation policy is in building the regional conditions that support indigenous small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in this transition process. This paper aims at reducing this omission by analyzing the co-evolution of the strategies of indigenous SMEs and the regional innovation system of Bangalore (India).

Recent literature shows that differences in structural characteristics at country level are important determinants of the innovative capacities and growth performance of different countries. Based on firm-level data collected from a survey, this study identifies who are the world leaders, followers, and marginalised firms in a sample of nine countries and a selection of industries in terms of firms' characteristics, the characteristics of the region where they are located, as well as the firm strategies to engage in global innovation networks. Our results, based on a small sample, show that some firms from emerging economies are among the exclusive group of world leaders and some firms from developed economies are among world followers and marginalised. Without attempting to generalise our results, the findings confirm the changing role of some firms in emerging economies from followers to world leaders in innovation.