In economic geography, a main research focus is on the relationship between innovation and space. Based on the observations of spatially clustered innovative activities in urban environments, a central argument is that the exchange of innovation-relevant knowledge across firms and other actors as well as the accompanying learning processes are promoted through geographical proximity. Agglomerations are said to offer multiple advantages, e.g. through frequent face-to-face contacts and opportunities for intense collaboration, a common labour pool and shared institutions. From this perspective, a location in large urban environments is beneficial for innovation, while by contrast, being located outside of agglomerations is not (Fitjar & Rodríguez‐Pose 2019).
This dissertation relates to growing debates around the unease with the seemingly accepted truths about the strong connection of agglomerations and firm innovation. The research field has been found to be urban-biased, focussed on cases of successful regions and delivering multiple explanations of their success – while neglecting innovations occurring outside of agglomerations and largely portraying such regions and their actors as disadvantaged (Shearmur 2017). Within the emergent studies of innovation in peripheral contexts, some specifics have been proposed based on empirical studies, but a coherent theoretical framework is missing (e.g. Eder 2019). Against this background, this dissertation aims to contribute to a better understanding of innovation from a peripheral perspective based on comparison of firms by location. It explores knowledge creation processes and innovation activities of Hidden Champions in Germany. These highly innovative and globally active manufacturing firms are quite evenly distributed across Germany. By exploring practices and strategies of these firms towards innovation from a comparative perspective, this study investigates the following overarching research question:
• What are the characteristics and main drivers of innovation outside of agglomerations and in how far do these differ from those inside agglomerations?
This research builds on relational perspectives on economic action by adopting a geographical lens (Bathelt & Glückler 2003, Yeung 2005). It focusses on actors and how they act and interact in space without privileging any spatial scale or mechanism such as local interaction. Spaces and places are not perceived as territorially bounded units but as contexts in which actors organise their often multi-scalar relations. Following these basic theoretical positions, several concepts and approaches are utilised to develop a detailed understanding of firm innovation in space. While notions of slow innovation and the reliance on firm-internal capabilities point towards reduced interaction requirements especially of firms in peripheral regions to innovate (e.g. Shearmur 2015), the proximity approach (Boschma 2005) and the notion of global pipelines (Bathelt et al. 2004) highlight that geographical proximity is not a necessary precondition for interactive knowledge creation and innovation. Based on these conceptual perspectives and linked to the goal of understanding key mechanisms of innovation from a peripheral perspective, the guiding research question is complemented by the following sub-questions:
• How and where do firms gain relevant knowledge for their innovation activities?
• Which role do internal capabilities as well as external efforts towards innovation play and how do firms assess both dimensions?
• What is the role of the firms’ location, especially regarding local options of knowledge creation?
Based on a mixed method research design including a quantitative survey among the Hidden Champions and qualitative interviews with representatives of these firms, three dimensions relevant to the understanding of knowledge creation and innovation are considered for the empirical analyses: practices of knowledge creation at the individual level, strategic approaches towards innovation at the organisational level and the socio-spatial contexts in which knowledge creation processes and innovation are organised.
The overarching finding of this dissertation is that firms like Hidden Champions largely follow the same principles to innovate independently from their location. Thereby, the results highlight the commonalities of firm innovation in urban and peripheral contexts instead of pointing towards major limitations or specificities of innovation in more peripheral regions. With taking the firm at the centre of analysis, this research demonstrates that regional economic pre-conditions do not necessarily relate to the capacities of firms to innovate. Neither do investigated firms located inside agglomera-tions largely capitalise on options of local interaction, nor do firms located outside of agglomerations face major disadvantages due to the lack of local options to source knowledge and interact.
Instead and irrespectively of their location, firms strategically engage in various firm-internal and -external options to gain knowledge and have the capacities to shape their multi-scalar socio-spatial contexts for knowledge creation according to their needs. The results underline that intense interaction with externals is only one out of many options for firms to gain knowledge. Next to strong internal capabilities, non-interactive modes of knowledge sourcing via desk research, for instance, and more informal modes of knowledge creation via the participation in trade fairs have been identified as integral parts of firms’ innovation activities. This study suggests that such forms of ‘selective openness’ have not been sufficiently addressed in the research field so far. Selective openness not only stresses the strategic approaches of firms towards innovation but also the variety of options for knowledge creation which are usually not reliant on or connected to the regional contexts of firms. Moreover, this study finds that the connection between innovation and agglomeration is not as clear as suggested by urban perspectives, at least for the German context. Rather, much of the urban/rural and core/periphery divide seems to be discursively produced.
This dissertation complements existing research on the geographies of innovation by providing insights from a peripheral view on innovation. It contributes to current debates on urban-biased perspectives and the dichotomous representation of firm innovation in urban and peripheral contexts. Based on the empirical results, it proposes a more differentiated view on openness and suggests recommendations for place-based policies towards regional development and innovation.:Summary 9
1. Introduction 11
1.1. Research objectives and questions 13
1.2. Hidden Champions in Germany 16
1.3. Structure of the dissertation 18
2. Re-thinking the geographies of firm innovation 21
2.1. Firms and innovation 22
2.1.1. Understanding firm innovation 24
2.1.2. Coordination of internal and external knowledge for innovation 25
2.1.3. Varieties of open innovation 29
2.2. Geographies and innovation 33
2.2.1. Beyond territorial innovation 34
2.2.2. Questioning the status quo: urban bias and the periphery label 41
2.2.3. Current understandings of innovation outside of agglomerations 45
2.3. Conceptual framework 51
2.3.1. Positioning the own research 51
2.3.2. A relational perspective on economic processes in space 55
2.3.3. Beyond dualistic conceptualisations of innovation and space 59
3. Methodological approach 66
3.1. Critical realism as the basic ontological and epistemological perspective 66
3.1.1. Basics notions of critical realism 67
3.1.2. Implications for research methodologies 68
3.2. Research design 69
3.2.1. Multi-dimensional comparative approach 70
3.2.2. Triangulation 72
3.2.3. Comparison 73
3.3. Empirical and analytical methods and proceedings 75
3.3.1. Development of a database of Hidden Champions in Germany 75
3.3.2. Quantitative survey 81
3.3.3. Semi-structured interviews 85
4. Patterns and socio-spatial contexts of firm innovation –
Quantitative results 90
4.1. The spatial distribution of Hidden Champions in Germany 90
4.2. Firm characteristics and innovation patterns 93
4.2.1. Organisational and spatial aspects of firm structures 93
4.2.2. Innovation activities 94
4.2.3. Information sources and collaboration 96
4.3. Comparison of the firms by location 98
4.4. Types of innovative firms 101
4.4.1. Approach, implementation and results of the cluster analysis 102
4.4.2. Types of innovators and their locations 107
4.5. Interim results and arising questions 110
5. Strategies and practices towards knowledge creation and innovation –
Qualitative results 113
5.1. Firm profiles 116
5.1.1. Firms located outside of agglomerations 116
5.1.2. Firms located inside agglomerations 120
5.2. The global integration of firms 124
5.2.1. Firms, their niche markets and ways of internationalisation 124
5.2.2. Knowledge creation strategies and the role of geography 127
5.2.3. Organisational structures to secure the global reach 134
5.2.4. The significance of innovation and high quality 136
5.3. Strategies towards innovation 137
5.3.1. Corporate culture and ambition 138
5.3.2. Key internal and external drivers of innovation 139
5.3.3. The temporal dimension of innovation 142
5.4. Firm-internal organisation of innovation activities 144
5.4.1. Main challenges 145
5.4.2. The headquarters as the central corporate unit 148
5.4.3. Internationalisation of knowledge creation and innovation 150
5.5. The external dimension of innovation activities 155
5.5.1. Access to external sources of knowledge 155
5.5.2. Collaboration with partners 158
5.5.3. Evaluation of the external dimension for innovation 164
5.6. The role of the regional contexts for firm innovation 165
5.6.1. The perception of regional contexts at the headquarters 166
5.6.2. The regional embeddedness of firms 171
5.6.3. Evaluation of the regional dimension 175
5.7. Summary of findings and comparison with the quantitative results 176
6. Firm innovation beyond agglomeration – Discussion of results 180
6.1. Globally dispersed knowledge dynamics and secrecy 180
6.2. The processual character of innovation activities 185
6.3. The role of the places and spaces for firm innovation 191
7. Main findings, conclusions and outlook 196
7.1. Summary of main findings and contributions of the research 196
7.2. Conclusions and policy recommendations 200
7.3. Reflections on the study and avenues for future research 202
Appendices 206
References 220
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:75679 |
| Date | 10 August 2021 |
| Creators | Vonnahme, Lukas |
| Contributors | Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion, doc-type:doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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