This paper explores the relationship existing among the heterogeneous nature of firms in industrial clusters, their structural position in knowledge networks and their performance. Following the rising interest for spatially agglomerated industrial firms and their learning and innovative...

Firms’ embeddedness into knowledge networks has received much attention in the literature. However, little is known about the composition of firms’ ego-networks with respect to different types of proximities. Based on survey data of 295 firms in eight European regions, we show that the...

Governance constitutes elementary supportive infrastructure for regional innovation systems. This paper extends the evolutionary lens of governance into initial industrialization phase and examines the impact of their evolution into regional innovation systems on fostering innovation activities....

Industrial clusters are often associated with innovative success. However, there is very little research on what types of organizational models apply to clusters as they grow, to facilitate upgrading and innovation Ð and especially in emerging/developing countries. This paper uses longitudinal...

Regional clusters are spatial agglomerations of firms operating in the same or connected industries, which enable innovation and economic performance for firms. A wealth of empirical literature shows that one of key elements of the success of regional clusters is that they facilitate the...

The importance of geographical proximity for interaction and knowledge sharing has been discussed extensively in economic geography in recent years. There is increasing consensus that it is just one out of many types of proximities that might be relevant. We argue that proximity may be a crucial...

The importance of network structures for the transmission of knowledge and the diffusion of technological change has been emphasized in economic geography. Since network structures drive the innovative and economic performance of actors in regional contexts, it is crucial to explain how networks...

Despite theoretical and empirical advances, the proximity framework has remained essentially static in that the given proximity between actors explains the extent to which they interact in knowledge networks and profit from such interactions. We propose a dynamic extension of the proximity...

This paper aims to explain whether firm-specific features, their engagement in collaboration networks and their location influence patent activity of biotech firms in Germany in the period 1997-2004. First, we demonstrate that non-collaborative R&D subsidies do not increase patent intensity of...

We propose an evolutionary perspective on the geography of network formation that is grounded in a dynamic proximity framework. In doing so, we root the proximity concept in an evolutionary approach to the geography of innovation networks. We discuss three topics. The first topic focuses on...