<p>This thesis deals with the causes and effects of spatial clustering of similar and related economic activity. The relationship between spatial clustering and industrial competitive-ness is analysed in a series of empirical studies, revolving around four research questions: How useful is an institutional approach in analyses of spatial clustering? Can the link between spatial clustering and industrial performance be empirically validated and measured by quantitative methods? In what sense does spatial clustering promote localised processes of learning and innovation? What role can industrial and regional policies play in promoting the type of localised processes emphasised in spatial clustering research?</p><p>It proves to be a rather complicated matter to measure the impact of spatial clustering on firm performance. In the case of export-oriented manufacturing firms in Sweden, the co-location of firms in a particular industry appears to have only a modest impact on export performance. However, when a more qualitative approach is applied, there is some evidence that spatial clustering can have a positive impact. A study of the Swedish music industry indicates that there is indeed a link between the concentration of music-related businesses in the Stockholm region and localised processes of learning and innovation. Such localised processes appear, in turn, to be linked to the ability to create and sustain industrial competitiveness. Finally, the thesis examines how the cluster concept has been put into practice in Swedish industrial and regional policies.</p>

<p>Since the demise of central planning, post-Soviet cities have found themselves operating in a radically different economic climate. Contrary to the situation during the Soviet époque, market relations and the urban economy's adjustment thereto constitute the reality which urbanites face in their daily lives. For the vast majority, this reality has been harsh. Even so, market agency in post-Soviet cities is circumscribed by a physical infrastructure composed to foster its rejection, leading to an inevitable tension between Soviet legacy and the reality of the market economy. An overarching task of this dissertation is to contribute to a greater understanding of the new urban form which is emerging out of this tension. For this purpose, eight papers, using case studies from urban Kazakhstan, are brought together in order to shed light on recent urban developments in the former Soviet Union.Two broad themes are subject to particular attention: urbanisation and regional migration processes, and urban socio-spatial differentiation. Urbanisation is studied through the comparative analysis of census data from 1989 and 1999, from which a "closed city effect" pattern emerges. Sovietand post-Soviet era urban-bounf migrant characteristics are compared using survey data (N=3,136) collected by the author, demonstrating the existence of a significant ethnic transition within the migrant flow. Socio-spatial differentiation patterns are mapped and analysed for three Kazakh military-industrial case study cities (Ust'-Kamenogorsk, Leninogorsk and Zyryanovsk), revealing significant spatial disparities which are principally explainable in light of the workings of the Soviet economy, and its built-in priority system. Market forces tend to accentuate them.</p>

<p>This thesis is concerned with the efforts to bring about a greater degree of local community participation in the use and management of Sri Lanka's coastal land and natural resources. Through the application of the Special Area Management (SAM) strategy in geographically distinct areas along the coast, the aim is to create collaborative arrangements - partnerships - that will enable coastal communities and local governments to work together with the Sri Lankan state and share responsibility and authority over the management of coastal land and natural resources. </p><p>Using a political-geographical perspective that highlights the political and spatial dimensions of this shift in forms for governing the coast, the thesis seeks to identify and discuss factors that can have a bearing on the participatory dimension of collaborative coastal management in Sri Lanka. The thesis focuses particularly on factors influencing the role played by the local communities and the degree to which they actually come to share authority with respect to the use and management of coastal natural resources as envisioned in the SAM strategy. </p><p>The thesis illustrates that, despite an ambition to bring about a sharing of authority and control in costal management, this has not quite worked out in practice. Due to circumstances relating both to the SAM strategy itself and to the context in which it is implemented, the degree to which coastal communities have gained any degree of influence with respect to the management of coastal land and resources remains questionable. </p><p>The study is carried out prior to the tsunami that hit the Sri Lankan shores in December 2004. However, given the major reconstruction of Sri Lanka's coast that currently is ongoing and the controversy that surrounds it, the issues raised in this thesis are highly relevant.</p>

This thesis deals with the causes and effects of spatial clustering of similar and related economic activity. The relationship between spatial clustering and industrial competitive-ness is analysed in a series of empirical studies, revolving around four research questions: How useful is an institutional approach in analyses of spatial clustering? Can the link between spatial clustering and industrial performance be empirically validated and measured by quantitative methods? In what sense does spatial clustering promote localised processes of learning and innovation? What role can industrial and regional policies play in promoting the type of localised processes emphasised in spatial clustering research? It proves to be a rather complicated matter to measure the impact of spatial clustering on firm performance. In the case of export-oriented manufacturing firms in Sweden, the co-location of firms in a particular industry appears to have only a modest impact on export performance. However, when a more qualitative approach is applied, there is some evidence that spatial clustering can have a positive impact. A study of the Swedish music industry indicates that there is indeed a link between the concentration of music-related businesses in the Stockholm region and localised processes of learning and innovation. Such localised processes appear, in turn, to be linked to the ability to create and sustain industrial competitiveness. Finally, the thesis examines how the cluster concept has been put into practice in Swedish industrial and regional policies.

Since the demise of central planning, post-Soviet cities have found themselves operating in a radically different economic climate. Contrary to the situation during the Soviet époque, market relations and the urban economy's adjustment thereto constitute the reality which urbanites face in their daily lives. For the vast majority, this reality has been harsh. Even so, market agency in post-Soviet cities is circumscribed by a physical infrastructure composed to foster its rejection, leading to an inevitable tension between Soviet legacy and the reality of the market economy. An overarching task of this dissertation is to contribute to a greater understanding of the new urban form which is emerging out of this tension. For this purpose, eight papers, using case studies from urban Kazakhstan, are brought together in order to shed light on recent urban developments in the former Soviet Union.Two broad themes are subject to particular attention: urbanisation and regional migration processes, and urban socio-spatial differentiation. Urbanisation is studied through the comparative analysis of census data from 1989 and 1999, from which a "closed city effect" pattern emerges. Sovietand post-Soviet era urban-bounf migrant characteristics are compared using survey data (N=3,136) collected by the author, demonstrating the existence of a significant ethnic transition within the migrant flow. Socio-spatial differentiation patterns are mapped and analysed for three Kazakh military-industrial case study cities (Ust'-Kamenogorsk, Leninogorsk and Zyryanovsk), revealing significant spatial disparities which are principally explainable in light of the workings of the Soviet economy, and its built-in priority system. Market forces tend to accentuate them.

This thesis is concerned with the efforts to bring about a greater degree of local community participation in the use and management of Sri Lanka's coastal land and natural resources. Through the application of the Special Area Management (SAM) strategy in geographically distinct areas along the coast, the aim is to create collaborative arrangements - partnerships - that will enable coastal communities and local governments to work together with the Sri Lankan state and share responsibility and authority over the management of coastal land and natural resources. Using a political-geographical perspective that highlights the political and spatial dimensions of this shift in forms for governing the coast, the thesis seeks to identify and discuss factors that can have a bearing on the participatory dimension of collaborative coastal management in Sri Lanka. The thesis focuses particularly on factors influencing the role played by the local communities and the degree to which they actually come to share authority with respect to the use and management of coastal natural resources as envisioned in the SAM strategy. The thesis illustrates that, despite an ambition to bring about a sharing of authority and control in costal management, this has not quite worked out in practice. Due to circumstances relating both to the SAM strategy itself and to the context in which it is implemented, the degree to which coastal communities have gained any degree of influence with respect to the management of coastal land and resources remains questionable. The study is carried out prior to the tsunami that hit the Sri Lankan shores in December 2004. However, given the major reconstruction of Sri Lanka's coast that currently is ongoing and the controversy that surrounds it, the issues raised in this thesis are highly relevant.

The purpose with this essay is to explore the social changes in relation to changes in mortality for the two largest ethnic groups in Estonia; ethnic Estonians and the Russian minority. Since this is a geographical essay, my purpose is also to explore these changes in relation to the country’s internal geography. As these changes appear over time in space, the content is partly rooted in a time geographical point of view. It is also rooted in a regional geographical point of view, since I have been comparing the mentioned changes between different areas in Estonia (with considerations on developments abroad). Two different development lines can be seen as a consequence of the social changes taking place in the 1990s. While the ethnic Estonians situation has improved, the Russian minority’s situation has instead declined regarding to social existence and health. As a result the mortality has increased enormously for the Russian minority. The ethnic Estonians had also a mortality increase in practically all studied causes of death in all studied areas, but this increase wasn’t as high as for the Russian minority. Nevertheless, when comparing two different counties with each other as well as with the country as whole, the pattern seems to be more complicated. The Russians living in the western county of Läänemaa, have been affected more favourably by the social change than those living in the north-eastern county of Ida-Virumaa. Except for mortality by alcohol poisoning, the Russians living in Läänemaa had a much lower mortality increase than those living in Ida-Viruma and even compared with the country as whole. It seems as those Russians living in the western parts of Estonia have been affected more favourably than those living in the north-eastern parts. These structures are very much depending on the history, since most of the Russians living in the north-eastern area immigrated during the Soviet era, while the western parts had a much earlier immigration of Russians. Considering the time and place of the Russian immigration, one can divide the Russian minority in two groups; those in the west, and those in the east.

The principal aim of this thesis is to discover and analyse the motives that make immigrant women start their own businesses in Sweden and to investigate whether this is a way to achieve integration in working life. The empirical material consists of two types of interviews. One type consisted of interviews with five experts on labour market issues, and the other of interviews with 16 female entrepreneurs of Iranian, Chilean and Turkish origin having their own business in the Greater Stockholm region. Results from the first set of interviews indicate that female immigrants who independently start their enterprise rely mainly on their own resources of power and abilities. They are either women with class resources such as higher educations, previous work experience, language abilities and economic savings, or young women with certificates from high schools or universities. The social environment where they grew up, the gender structure and gender roles in the family before and after immigration and time of residence in Sweden also influence the extent to which women immigrants can act independently. According to the experience of the experts, the motives for starting their business are either different structural reasons, e.g. unemployment, lack of suitable or well-paying jobs, lay-offs etc, or personal reasons such as having a meaningful occupation, to support the family, to earn money of their own, to be independent from men and strive for a better standard of living etc. Results from the second set of interviews indicate that the most important resource these women have used when establishing their businesses is class resources such as education and adequate training, different types of work experiences, human capital and in addition to this economic savings. For many of the women in this sample different structural reasons, like unemployment, lack of good job opportunities, discrimination on work places, merge with personal reasons such as strivings to achieve independence, being one’s own boss, to realize one’s plans and ambitions, when starting their business. Independent entrepreneurship is a good way for immigrant women to be integrated in working life especially if they start within certain branches. These are branches in which the women have appropriate university education or vocational training, previous work experience or which correspond to their personal interests. In addition immigrant women become more integrated if an education received abroad is treated as equivalent to the parallel Swedish education or degree. A further factor promoting integration is if they can fully exploit their capacities when developing their own businesses. These conditions help them to feel much more satisfaction in working life as women identify themselves with their actual profession and feel that they have found the “right place” for themselves in the society.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.S.U.R.P.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1976.

SENSTANTI VISUOMENĖ: KONKURENCINGUMO VEIKSNIAI IR PRIEMONĖS EUROPOJE SANTRAUKA Informacinėje visuomenėje demografinių procesų dinamika paspartino senstančios visuomenės procesą ir pakeitė visuomenės amžiaus struktūrą. Technologijų pažanga, globalizacija ir demografinis senėjimas keičia Europos visuomenę ir skatina politikos kūrėjus atsižvelgti į įvairius skirtingų kartų poreikius. Europoje, kurioje labai ryškios senėjimo tendencijos ypač jaučiami socialiniai ir ekonominiai pokyčiai: globalinės užimtumo, kompetencijos bei gebėjimų naudotis informacinėmis technologinėmis stoka, sveikatos, politinės ir bendruomeninio aktyvumo galimybės. Senstančios visuomenės augimas yra kompleksinė problema, kuri pasireiškia nacionaliniu, regioniniu, įmonių ir individualiu lygmeniu. Stiprinant senstančios visuomenės konkurencingumą ir socialinę sanglaudą, remiantis strategijomis kuriamos efektyvios priemonės siekiant kokybiško integravimo į socialinę bei ekonominę politiką. Tezė Europoje senstančios visuomenės problemos sukelia sudėtingus socialinius ir ekonominius pokyčius, kuriuos itin svarbu tikslingai įvertinti ir numatyti, kad būtų galima laiku imtis veiksmų, kurių tikslas – suformuoti naujas realijas, atitinkančias, senstančios visuomenės globaliojo konkurencingumo sampratas. / AGING SOCIETY: FACTORS AND MEANS OF COMPETITIVENESS IN EUROPE SUMMARY Dynamics of demographic processes in information society has accelerated the process of aging society and changed the structure for the age of society. The advancement of technologies, globalization and demographic aging change the European society and encourage the policy makers to regard the demands of different generations. Social and economic alterations are especially felt in Europe where there are very vivid aging tendencies: global employment, a lack of competence and ability to use information technologies, health, possibilities of political and communal activity. The growth of aging society is a complex problem which asserts in national, regional, enterprise and individual level. The effective measures are created by strengthening the competitiveness of aging society and social cohesion as well as referring to strategies in pursuance of integration to social and economic politics. Thesis Problems of aging society in Europe initiates complicated social and economy changes which must be thoroughly appraised and predicted in order to take timely measures aimed at formation of global competitiveness concepts for the aging society which fit to new reality.