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Regional development platforms as incubators of business ecosystems. Case study: The Lahti urban region, Finland
Author(s) -
Harmaakorpi Vesa,
Rinkinen Satu
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
growth and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.657
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1468-2257
pISSN - 0017-4815
DOI - 10.1111/grow.12375
Subject(s) - business ecosystem , ecosystem , business , regional policy , industrial organization , environmental resource management , environmental policy , regional development , regional science , economics , ecology , knowledge management , computer science , geography , biology
Abstract This paper combines three major concepts: regional development platforms, business ecosystems and competitiveness policy. The framework of business and innovation ecosystems is gaining ground in the discussion of competitiveness and innovation policy. The framework challenges competitiveness and innovation policies because ecosystems are seen as highly self‐organising and self‐renewing systems. Is there still room for innovation and competitiveness policies? This paper focuses on ecosystem‐facilitating competitiveness policy at the regional level and argues that the emergence, growth and renewal of business ecosystems can be facilitated by a competitiveness policy focused on related variety platforms embedded in a regional innovation ecosystem. As a case illustrating this point, we present the strategic themes and development platforms in the Lahti urban region, which are constructed following the ecosystem theory. This paper contributes to the previous literature on regional development and innovation policy by presenting a policy framework for a modern competitiveness policy that is based on constructed competitiveness, development platforms and business and innovation ecosystem theory. For policy practice, this paper provides a real‐life example of a regional competitiveness strategy and the construction of a strategy that is based on the ecosystem frame.