Abstract
This edited volume sets out to contribute to an important question – what entrepreneurship and innovation policies lead to economic growth. The origin of this book is a conference held in La Jolla, California, in December 2011. The conference brought together scholars, policymakers and business executives interested in local competitiveness. According to the editors, this book contains ‘the most poignant insightful new ideas’ presented at the conference (p. 2). Four main ideas, presented below, emerge and are developed throughout the book.
First, a central premise of the contributions in this book is that innovation, and innovation policy, matters to ‘places’. Atkinson suggests that policies for economic success in the new economy need to be about ‘supporting a knowledge infrastructure; spurring innovation; and encouraging entrepreneurship’ (p. 40). Across the contributions, there are policy recommendations, such as Andersson’s belief, that places need ‘free zones’ for human creativity (p. 171) as well as examples of successful policies, such as Wessner and Shivakumar’s discussion of the success of German’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs) translate new technologies into products and processes. The role of universities in innovation policy is a recurring theme throughout the book. For instance, Siegel’s review discusses ‘lessons learned’ from prior research on academic entrepreneurship, suggesting what universities can do to support new firm creation.
Second, a common idea in many of the chapters is that it is not easy to develop innovation policies that support competitiveness within a city or regional context. In his overview of innovation policy, Atkinson argues that many current approaches to innovation policy are wrong, while Andersson suggests that ‘prevailing frameworks for policy guidance somehow lack applicability and relevance on the ground’ (p. 157). Andersson further highlights the tendency towards ‘herd behaviour’ in policy making.
Third, a helpful insight in several of the contributions is that policy must reflect both the local and historical context – geography (place) and history matter to innovation policy. The case study of Georgia Institute of Technology by Breznitz and Ram highlights how there is no ‘silver bullet’ for technology transfer, and that historical strengths and the local environment matter to how universities should approach technology transfer. In reviewing the role of the CONNECT programme in San Diego’s evolution, Lindenstein Walshok and Shragge highlight how technology relatedness is an important part of San Diego’s transformation over time.
Fourth, another important idea to emerge from this volume is how a ‘place’ might seek to support innovation. Wolfe suggests that places need to develop ‘the organisational capacity for formulating and implementing new development strategies’ (p. 23). Atkinson refers to the need for ‘institutional innovation’, arguing that this has lagged behind the technological transformations that have occurred in recent times. Atkinson sees the scope for institutional innovation, including many areas that are traditionally ‘outside’ innovation policy. While citing examples of institutional innovation in education, he suggests that it is needed across broad areas of activities, including, for example, health care and transportation. Related to this idea, Lindenstein Walshok and Shragge highlight the role of ‘civic culture’ in transforming existing resources as the external environment changes – this, they discuss in the context of San Diego’s transformation over time. In a study of how innovation occurred in two sectors in Argentina, McDermott highlights the importance of specific associations that act as ‘social and knowledge bridges’ in understanding how firm’s upgraded their resources. Interestingly, McDermott highlights how resource-constrained organisations, in terms of small budgets and small staff numbers, played a key role in upgrading the resources of a firm.
In practical terms, this edited volume contains nine separate contributions and a short overview of the contributions from the editors. The contributions differ in terms of style. Included are an overview and discussion of innovation policy (Chapter 3), of how place matters to innovation policies (Chapter 8) and a literature review on academic entrepreneurship (Chapter 6). Reflecting the focus of the book – innovation in places – the majority of the contributions describe and discuss specific places. These include the results of a detailed study of innovation in two sectors in Argentina (Chapter 4); case studies of individual institutions from the perspective of technology transfer and commercialisation of research, including Georgia Institute of Technology (Chapter 5), and of policy approaches, including a discussion of how the strategic choices of ‘civic actors’ and development trajectories interrelate in the context of the technology cluster in Waterloo, Canada (Chapter 2); the role of cluster policies in the United States, with mini cases of three US states: Michigan, Ohio and Kanas (Chapter 7); the role of ‘collective entrepreneurship’ in the emergence of the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina (Chapter 9); and the role of the CONNECT programme in the development of San Diego’s innovation economy (Chapter 10).
The objective of this book is to present new ideas about innovation policy. Its strength is the questions which are raised, the ideas presented and the contexts studied (rather than the specific research studies or specific research findings). Read as a collection, the nine contributions raise some interesting ideas about innovation policy and are a reminder of the challenges policymakers face in developing innovation policy. These ideas should be of particular interest to policymakers seeking a deeper understanding of the challenges of ‘new’ innovation policy and to researchers seeking to influence innovation policy.