Knowledge Drivers, Business Collaboration and Competitiveness in Rural and Urban Regions
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Knowledge Drivers, Business Collaboration and Competitiveness in Rural and Urban Regions Jose‑Maria Garcia‑Alvarez‑Coque1 · Norat Roig‑Tierno2 · Mercedes Sanchez‑Garcia3 · Francisco Mas‑Verdu1 Accepted: 21 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Many rural regions are characterised by low technology-intensive activities. Their predominant focus is often on primary, agri-food, and natural resources and services sectors, and there is a competitive gap with respect to urban regions. The objective of this article is to determine the contribution of the innovation system to regional development, distinguishing between rural and urban regions. Qualitative comparative analysis was used to study 256 EU NUTS 2 regions. The analysis helped identify ‘recipes’ of drivers of regional competitiveness in rural and urban regions. These innovation recipes consist of varying combinations of private and public R&D expenditure, the presence or absence of top-ranked universities and the percentage of SMEs that collaborate in innovation activities. In rural regions, excellence in higher education combined with strong public and private R&D offers an important recipe for regional competitiveness. Alternative pathways include the presence of business collaboration as a driver of competitiveness. Keywords Regional innovation · Regional competitiveness · Innovative pathways · Qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)
* Norat Roig‑Tierno [email protected] Jose‑Maria Garcia‑Alvarez‑Coque [email protected] Mercedes Sanchez‑Garcia [email protected] Francisco Mas‑Verdu [email protected] 1
Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain
2
ESIC Business and Marketing School, Valencia, Spain
3
Universidad Pública de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
13
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J.-M. Garcia‑Alvarez‑Coque et al.
1 Introduction Many rural regions are characterised by low technology-intensive sectors with a focus on primary, agri-food and natural resources sectors. Competitively, they often lag behind urban regions. These differences beg the question of what role the innovation system plays in regional development. This paper focuses on a key element of regional competitiveness, namely the ability of regions to produce, absorb and disseminate knowledge (Cooke et al. 2011; Pike et al. 2016; Akpinar et al. 2017). It also examines the availability of knowledgeintensive infrastructures and services (Huggins and Johnston 2010). The present study assesses the relevance of knowledge-related variables, testing their influence on regional competitiveness in rural and urban regions. Research on regional innovation and competitiveness has been conducted from different theoretical and methodological perspectives, such as triple helix, clusters and innovation systems, to name but a few (Jiao et al. 2016; Ericson et al. 2018; Květoň and Horák 2018). Some scholars insist on the potential differences between rural and urban regions (Ratner and Markley 2014; Harpa 2017; Aryal et al. 2018). Rural regions face problems in the form of lack of ac
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