Creating Collaborative Advantage: Innovation and Knowledge Creation in Regional Economies

The language of 'competitive advantage' is now tainted. This book is about the language, concepts and practice of creating 'collaborative advantage'. There is an emerging new collaborative economic order where innovation results from an integrated process of collaboration between policymakers, business and society. In many parts of the World, the focus for this collaboration is neither at the national level or that of the individual enterprise, but at a regional level. The contributions in Creating Collaborative Advantage examine new trends in innovation policy that reflect this new collaborative thinking and regional focus.Hitherto, all these trends have been discussed separately in literature confined to individual fields of research but all of the authoritative contributions in this book speak with one voice in arguing that the comprehensive challenge of social and economic development at regional level requires a similarly comprehensive response.Chapters in this book address moving industrial policy away from direct public support towards more indirect measures like network steering, to facilitate the creation of cluster strategies and learning regions. Regional governance, new public management, decentralization of public administration and a new role for universities are all considered here, along with the notion of a 'people climate' as well as a 'business climate', in order to grow a knowledge economy. All this reveals a need to understand multi-level processes, addressing an agent level, a social/group level, and an institutional/structural level. The contributors to this unique book have been involved with the implementation of some of the most outstanding examples of collaborative approaches and can and do suggest answers to questions such as:How are knowledge, learning, and innovation processes managed and organised?How can we develop learning organisations and good co-operation between research and business?How do co-operative arenas influence different branches and businesses ability to innovate end develop knowledge?How can we organise and make efficient the innovation system in order to create value?How is innovation activity within companies influenced by regionally initiated co-operation?How can we secure participation, dialogue and democracy in innovation process both at a micro and a macro level?Policy makers, advisers and administrators at all levels of government, those involved in research and development, and business leaders and educators, will find this book invaluable, together with readers having an academic interest in the subject of innovation.