Spatial Aspects of Interfirm Collaboration, an Exploration of Firm-Level Knowledge Dynamics

The days of vertical integration are over. Product development, manufacturing, and other activities once done by single firms are now fields of collaboration. This raises questions about the spatial aspects of interfirm collaboration. Firms have partners in their direct environment, at a distance, or in-between, which means that traditional views on regional economic development do no longer apply. It also means that a local-global dichotomy does not adequately describe today's economic landscape. This paper distinguishes four spatial scales – local, regional, national, international – and explores the distribution of interfirm collaboration across them, while taking project development over time into account