Some Spatial Aspects Of Entrepreneurship And Development

'Entrepreneurship had been high on the jobs growth and economic development agendas for many years and this edited book makes an important and timely contribution to the debate. . . the book is nicely poised to bring together space, innovation and economic growth linked together with entrepreneurship. . . This book provides an excellent and worthwhile insight into many of the issues with many contributions that significantly add to our understanding of entrepreneurship and regional development.' - Ronald W. McQuaid, Growth & Change

Taken together, the thirteen chapters of this book combinethe literature on the role of the entrepreneur with the new economic geographyliterature in order to illuminate the spatial context in which economicdevelopment takes place.The volume consists of four parts.While thefirst part is conceptual, revealing how evolutionary and neoclassical theoriesof economic development have converged, the second and third parts areempirical and describe the spatial variation in drivers of economic growth byoffering case studies.The fourth part contributes to new theorydevelopment. (SAA) Table of Contents Firm Behavior and Organization from an Evolutionary Perspective, JeroenC.J.M. van den Bergh The Roles of Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth: Toward a Theory of TotalFactor Productivity, Jack High Technocapitalism and the New Ecology of Entrepreneurship, LuisSuarez-Villa Spatial Variation in Social Capital among UK Small and Medium-SizedEnterprises, Philip Cooke and Nick Clifton The Institutionalization and Endogenization of Venture Capital: A RegionalAnalysis of Northern Virginia in the 1990s, Roger R. Stough, Peter Frank,and Gordon Shockley Human Capital and Regional Socio-Economic Performance: Differential Patternsacross Australia's Cities and Towns, Robert J. Stimson and ScottBaum A Knowledge-Based View on Innovation in Regional Networks: The Case of theKIC Project, Roel Rutten and Frans Boekema The Role of Collective Learning in ICT Adoption and Use, Roberta Capelloand Alessia Spairani Industrial Clusters and Regional Development: A Transaction-CostsPerspective on the Semiconductor Industry, Philip McCann and TomokazuArita Academic Knowledge and Fostering Entrepreneurship: An EvolutionaryPerspective, Marina van Geenhuizen and Danny Soetanto Location of Engineering and Designer Services in the Information Economy,Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås Firm Dynamics and Self-Organized Criticality, Rainer Andergassen, AuraReggiani, and Peter Nijkamp Knowledge, Capital Formation and Innovation Behavior in a Spatial Context,Günter Haag and Philipp Liedl.

This book addresses a gap in the present literature on the role that geography plays in the distribution of entrepreneurial activity. Emerging work on entrepreneurial ecosystems suggests it is important entrepreneurship studies move beyond the mere identification of factors that impact entrepreneurial activity to consider the unique geographic contexts in which entrepreneurs operate. These contexts include a variety of interactive elements including regional characteristics, institutions, actors, and connectors. As such, this collection analyses entrepreneurial activity in regions around the globe. The contributions explore a series of diverse regions in terms of their geographic, historical, industrial, and institutional contexts. The book also explores a range of topics, such as patterns of regional/subnational variations in entrepreneurial activity, geographically mediated determinants of entrepreneurship, inter-temporal dynamics, evolution of regional systems of entrepreneurship, and the impact of entrepreneurship on regional development and regional entrepreneurship policy. This book enhances our policy and practical knowledge about the unique regional context in which entrepreneurs operate and demonstrates the important role that geography plays in the spatial distribution of entrepreneurial activity.

Increased emphasis on the links between regional diversity and regional knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship highlights the need for a focus on the spatial aspects of these multifaceted, dynamic relationships in order to improve our understanding. By means of a conceptual approach, this timely book illustrates the links between innovation and economic development through the role of space. This thought-provoking book addresses the questions regarding diversity, innovation and clusters that require further investigation and analysis.

There has been a recent explosion of research incorporating a spatial dimension in environmental and natural resource economics, where the spatial aspects of human behaviour or the natural environment make a crucial difference in the analysis and policy response to the problem. Much of this research has been driven by the growing availability of spatially explicit social science data and the development of tools and methodological advances to use these data. Collected in this volume are 24 key articles considering the reasons for spatial variation in policies, due to either efficiency or equity considerations, and the consequences of that spatial variation for both environmental and economic outcomes. These articles demonstrate that the failure to address spatial issues in the analysis can create two problems: (1) the analysis provides a poor basis for predicting actual behaviour that is specifically based upon spatial considerations, and (2) the analysis fails to provide a basis for designing spatially targeted policies that could lead to more efficient outcomes.

Since the 1990s, new economic geography has received a lot of attention as mainstream economists such as Krugman and others began to focus on where economic activity occurs and why. Coincidentally, international trade, location theory, and urban economics all appear to be asking the same question: where is economic activity located and why? The challenge is to explain the economic concentration or agglomeration of a large number of activities in certain geographical space. This volume breaks down the various types of cities and evaluates the key factors used to look at cities, such as innovation, green growth, spatial concentration, and smart cities in order to understand how cities work. Why is it that certain cities attract talent? How do some cities become business hubs? Why is it that few cities become increasingly competitive while others remain stagnant? As development specialists are increasingly focusing on how to make cities competitive, this book can serve as a guide for providing key insights, backed by cases on how cities can possibly become more competitive and productive.