Quality and Regional Competitiveness

Recent literature on competitiveness has focused on innovation and industrial dynamics.In this paper it is argued that innovation is not enough when competing on global markets, at least incertain types of industries where performance, standards, and perceptions of the product are at theforefront. In addition to existing theory,we focus on the role of `quality' in creating and sustaining regionalcompetitive advantage. A theoretical framework for identifying and analyzing processes creating andrecreating understandings, perceptions, and experiences of quality, that is, a quality promise, is presented.In the framework, the quality process is divided into three dimensions, labelled performance, projection,and protection. Regional competitiveness is arguably achieved when: (a) a good or a service is wellrepresented in one or more of the quality dimensions; (b) quality perception and knowledge permeateall actors and their activities and are inherent throughout the value chain; and (c) space is an integralpart of these processes in that it facilitates (i) localized learning/localization economies, and(ii) place-based branding. It is argued that `quality' should be viewed as deeply embedded in spaceand that quality processes have both homogeneous and heterogeneous characteristics.Competitiveness through qualit