Title: Regional innovation, entrepreneurship and talent systems

Authors: Philip Cooke

Addresses: Centre for Advanced Studies and Centre for Economic and Social Analysis of Genomics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales CF10 3BB, UK

Abstract: Growth in general interest, specific research projects and papers and policy experimentation focused upon regional innovation systems has been remarkable since the concept entered scholarly discourse in the early 1990s. Sufficient time has elapsed for longitudinal studies of some of the earliest exemplars to have been conducted. These are enormously useful intellectually and in policy assessment terms, since they show how aspirant or actual regional systems evolve in imponderable ways. That is, it is now clear how global macroeconomic shifts may destabilise regional system equilibria, considerably more than, say, national system effects. But it is unclear whether such shocks assist system trajectories on to a higher or lower innovation curve in a predictable way. Two elements that have hitherto been understated in this innovation-led discourse are entrepreneurship and talent-formation. In this paper, an attempt is made to categorise regional innovation system evolution according to the robustness of the entrepreneurship and talent variables.

Keywords: regions; innovation systems; knowledge outsourcing; implicit knowledge; complicit knowledge; explicit knowledge; platforms; regional innovation; entrepreneurship; talent systems; innovation management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIM.2007.012878

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2007 Vol.7 No.2/3/4/5, pp.117 - 139

Published online: 21 Mar 2007 *

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