Systemic Competitiveness: New Governance Patterns for Industrial Development

Enhancing competitiveness poses a key challenge to all countries. The analysis of different developing regions shows that the most dynamic countries are not those that bank solely on competition between isolated firms, unconditioned free trade and the state as an institution of regulation and supervision. Instead the successful countries are those that actively shape locational and competitive advantages. The authors emphasise that an economy's competitiveness rests on purposive and intermeshed measures at four system levels (the meta-, macro-, meso- and micro-levels), and a multidimensional guidance concept consisting of competition, dialogue and shared decision-making, which integrates the key groups of actors.