Papers in Innovation Studies,
Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research

Abstract: It is widely accepted that firms in peripheral regions benefit to a lesser extent from local knowledge spillovers than firms located in agglomerations or industrial clusters. This paper investigates the extent to which innovative firms in peripheral regions compensate for the lack of access to local knowledge spillovers by collaborating at other geographical scales. So far the literature predominantly suggests that collaborations complement rather than compensate for local knowledge spillovers. Using data on the collaboration patterns of innovative firms in Sweden, this paper provides evidence that firms with low access to local knowledge spillovers tend to collaborate more. This effect, however, depends on firm size and in-house capabilities. Our findings suggest that firms with strong in-house capabilities do indeed compensate for a lack of local knowledge spillovers with collaborations while firms with weaker in-house capabilities depend more on the regional knowledge infrastructure.

Keywords: Local knowledge spillovers; periphery; collaboration; innovation; geography; Sweden

JEL-codes: O18; O30; O31; P48; R10; R11

23 pages, December 25, 2014

Full text files

201433_Grillitsch_Nilsson.pdf  

Download statistics

• Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research
• Home page for this series

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Torben Schubert ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2014_033This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:16:05.