Abstract
The innovativeness of a region depends on its ability to recombine
technological, organisational and scientific capabilities. This recombination
can be facilitated by regional policies. In the past, these policies
provided a stable set of "local collective competition goods" supporting
interorganisational patterns of cooperation, communication and competition.
Given the increasing uncertainties of an internationalised knowledge
society, these stable regional orders are challenged by new, more
open-ended and experimental patterns of regional policies. These
policies treat regions as social fields whose political and economic
boundaries, identities, dominant coalitions and governance structures
are constructed in bargaining and exchange relations. Also the type
of collective competition goods required and their target groups
are the result of negotiations involving not only political actors
and business associations but also enterprises and trade unions.
This shift to a discursive renewal of regional capabilities, as well
as the difficulties and limitations encountered by such "experimental
regionalism", is illustrated on the basis of an East and a West German
region. Leipzig had to create a new economic and business structure
and to integrate the existing firms into regional networks in order
to enhance its innovative capabilities. In Leipzig, these two challenges
were met by separate, newly created institutions thus hampering the
regional integration and innovativeness of the recently recreated
industrial basis. In Nuremberg, the transformation of a traditional
industrial region into a technology and service-based one was facilitated
by a common vision, regional networks, new research facilities and
favourable conditions for start-up activities. In this case, a new
regional "steering committee" facilitated the integration and renewal
of formerly isolated regional capabilities thus demonstrating the
potential of a discursive renewal of regional innovation systems.
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