| 10511. |
- Stanojev, Jermina, et al.
(författare)
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Smart Specialisation Strategies for Elevating Integration of Cultural Heritage into Circular Economy
- 2021
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 13:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The smart specialisation approach is becoming a strategic instrument for identifying regions' opportunities for growth and sustainable development. It is a place-based approach and plays an important role in benchmarking regional competitiveness. To have a smart specialisation strategy has been thought of as a key factor in making a choice for investment. Smart specialisation strategies represent a policy measure to overcome disorganised and weak parallel activities in developed EU countries and offer support to those areas that have research, technological and production capacity to carry out particular activities. Smart specialisation strategies, therefore, follow the socio-economic situation in countries and their integrated technological, institutional and business processes. The EU Member States and regions recognised that supporting a limited number of well-identified priorities for knowledge-based investments and/or clusters could advance, focusing on competitive assets and realistic growth capabilities reinforced by a critical mass of action and entrepreneurial resources. However, the role of culture and cultural heritage has not been significant in these processes. As the policy review revealed that circular economy should be considered as a broader sustainable development strategy, which should also "support Member States and regions to strengthen innovation for the circular economy through smart specialisations", the purpose of this paper is to lay a basis for a new, stronger complementarity between culture, cultural heritage and adaptive reuse practices, and circular economy concepts through smart specialisation strategies.
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| 10512. |
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| 10513. |
- Stihl, Linda, et al.
(författare)
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Agency, regional development and local context: Micro-level evidence from an old industrial region
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper we answer the call for a micro-level perspective on regional economic change, in peripheral regions in particular. Using an in-depth and comparative case study approach, we investigate how agency shapes regional development paths, and how agency is in turn shaped by local context. The performance of a single labor market often hides the very different strategies taken by decision-makers in different municipalities.Our case is not uncommon in Sweden or elsewhere: A peripheral region that is dependent on employment in the manufacturing sector dominated by large firms that are have their headquarters elsewhere. This dependency leaves such old industrial regions vulnerable to shocks. The labor market region of Olofström-Karlshamn experienced a period of exceptional economic decline between 2007 and 2010, prompted by restructuring in the automotive industry. In December 2008, around 1000 jobs disappeared overnight, throwing a municipality of 15000 people into crisis, and further rippling through the region. In the small municipality of Olofström, this shock prompted several collaborative initiatives to regain jobs lost, to lower the dependency on Volvo Cars, and to diversify the economy. By 2017, the 1000 jobs lost had been regained and what used to function as a loyal supplier base to Volvo and the rest of the automotive industry, is now actively coordinated as a regional cluster where firms collaborate and where effort is put into diversifying their customer base and market. In the neighboring municipality of Karlshamn, where Volvo was also the largest private sector employer, the crisis did not trigger major initiatives. Whereas Olofström appears to have changed industrial path organizationally (more cluster like), industrially (more diversified), and institutionally (collaborative), Karlshamn had been changing more gradually, less unified over a much longer period.In this paper, we use original, micro-level material from 23 interviews and supporting documents to provide a much needed micro-level perspective on regional economic change, foregrounding the role of agency in shaping regional development paths. It also sheds light on the role of non-firm actors in path creation, that otherwise receives little attention. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, we identify the motivations, resources and networks that prompt individuals, or groups of individuals, to take different kinds of initiatives. These forms of agency cumulatively change the organization and culture of the industrial path of the region. Second, we use our comparative cases to show that a single trigger can unleash change agency in one local context, but not nearly to the same effect in another, despite sharing the same regional structural conditions. Change agency is therefore highly dependent on the presence of specific enabling and constraining factors in the local context.
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| 10514. |
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| 10515. |
- Stihl, Linda, et al.
(författare)
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One crisis, one region, two municipalities: The geography of institutions and change agency in regional development paths
- 2021
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Ingår i: Geoforum. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-7185. ; 124:August 2021, s. 89-98
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How do regions change their development path? We contribute to the growing literature on agency in regional development by combining it with a focus on the institutions that shape, support and constrain change agency in pursuit of different types of development paths. We answer the call for micro-level perspectives on regional economic change, using an in-depth and comparative case study approach. The labour market region of Olofström-Karlshamn in South East Sweden experienced a period of exceptional decline following the economic crisis and crisis in the automotive industry in 2008, when more than 1000 jobs were lost in a labour market of 46,000. Within this single labour market, two municipalities perceived, experienced and handled the crisis very differently. In Olofström, this triggered the formation of new collaborations that enabled local actors to upgrade their development path, whereas the crisis did not greatly affect the already ongoing efforts aimed at path importation in Karlshamn. To explain this difference, our comparative study shows that the layering of formal and informal institutions produced unique institutional contexts at the local level, which guide the behaviour, collaboration and vision of local actors. We build on original, micro-level material from 23 interviews and supporting documents to make the following contributions to the growing literatures on the role of agency and institutions in shaping regional development paths: (i) Local institutional context conditions the activation of change agency; (ii) Change agency must be investigated – and performed – in close connection to its geographical context.
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| 10516. |
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| 10517. |
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Storstäder och tillväxt : Om storstadsregioners roll, betydelse och utmaningar för hållbar ekonomisk utveckling
- 2011. - 200
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- More than 200 years ago, only a few percent of the world's population lived in cities. By the first decade of this millennium, the proportion had grown to more than half. In Sweden, almost half of the population lives in the three largest metropolitan areas of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, which generate an even higher share of national economic output. It is clear that geographically-concentrated processes play a key role in economic growth. How metropolitan regions develop in the future will likely affect other regions. Metropolitan cities have particularly favorable conditions for economic growth by virtue of agglomeration and urbanization economies. Metropolitan cities are also nodes in an urban hierarchy, enabling economic distribution mechanisms between different regions. For many, within and outside academia, there may be good reasons to know more about the processes that underlie major urban development and economic growth. In this anthology researchers from different disciplines write about metropolitan cities and growth. The articles focus on different areas that can be considered important for a growing economy. Together, they provide a picture of metropolitan regions, and their importance and challenges for sustainable economic development.
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| 10518. |
- Strumsky, Deborah, et al.
(författare)
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As different as night and day : Scaling analysis of Swedish urban areas and regional labor markets
- 2021
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Ingår i: Environment and planning B. - : Sage Publications. - 2399-8083 .- 2399-8091. ; 48:2, s. 231-247
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The urban scaling framework views cities as integrated socioeconomic networks of interactions embedded in physical space. A crucial property of cities highlighted by this approach is that cities act to mix populations, a mixing both facilitated and constrained by physical infrastructure. Operationalizing a view of cities as settings for social interactions and population mixing—assembling a set of spatial units of analysis which contain the relevant social aspects of urban settlements—implies choices about the use of existing data, the assignation of data to locations, and the delineation of the boundaries of urban areas, all of which are far from trivial research decisions. Metropolitan areas have become the spatial unit of choice in urban economics and economic geography for investigating urban life as they are seen as encompassing the distinct phenomena of “urbanity” (proximity, density) and social interactions indirectly captured through a unified labor market. However, the population size and areal extent of metropolitan areas, as most often defined, render opaque the distinction between two salient types of urban population: those who work and those who reside within a metropolitan area. These two sets of individuals, among whom of course there is great overlap, putatively engage in different economic and social interactions which are in turn differently embedded in physical space. Availing ourselves of Swedish micro-level data for two distinct spatial units, tätorts (“dense localites”) and local labor markets, we can distinguish which types of populations and which types of spatial agglomerations are responsible for the observed scaling effects on productivity and physical infrastructure. We find that spatially contiguous labor markets are not enough to generate some of the most salient urban scaling phenomena.
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| 10519. |
- Stryamets, Natalya
(författare)
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Use and governance of non-wood forest products in transition and market economies : case studies in Ukraine and Sweden
- 2012
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Globally, forests and woodlands provide a large variety of non-wood forest products (NWFPs) as a resource base for regional and local development in rural landscapes. The role of NWFPs differs in time and space, and is often linked to the socio-economic context. In this thesis I (1) compared how the role of NWFPs is reflected in national policies in two countries in transition and with market economies (Ukraine and Sweden, respectively), and how these resources are used by different forest stakeholders in local landscape case studies in both countries (Roztochya and Småland, respectively); (2) identified the opportunities and challenges of sustainable use of NWFPs for local people in rural landscapes where these resources are very important for local livelihoods (Roztochya in Ukraine); (3) studied the governance of the emerging Roztochya Biosphere Reserve (BR) aimed at sustainable development towards sustainability in order to understand the roles and rights of different stakeholders in the decision-making process concerning NWFPs. Interviews with local forest stakeholders showed that (1) in both countries people have free access to NWFPs in all types of forest ownership; (2) reasons and methods of collection and amounts of harvested NWFPs by different forest users differed much between the Ukrainian and Swedish case studies, (3) traditional practices of NWFPs’ utilization were retained and revived in Ukraine, and (4) were no longer economically but rather socially important for local people in Sweden. To study governance of NWFPs I focused on the recently established BR in the Ukrainian case study. Finally, I discuss the role of NWFPs in transition and market economies, respectively, the extent to which sustainable use of NWFPs is supported in national policies, and BR as a tool for social learning and as a basis for implementation of sustainable forest management, including NWFPs.
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| 10520. |
- Ström, Patrik, et al.
(författare)
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Dynamic Regional Competitiveness in the Creative Economy : Can Peripheral Communities Have a Place?
- 2010
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Ingår i: Service Industries Journal. - London : Taylor & Francis Group. - 0264-2069 .- 1743-9507. ; 30:4, s. 497-511
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article makes a contribution to the debate on regional economic development based on the increasing importance of the knowledge-driven or creative economy. The empirical data stems from research conducted on the structure of the creative economy in Sweden, where the results point to a few areas of importance for the concentration of the creative class. The results are compared with Canadian studies that reflect similar economic development patterns. The article seeks to contribute to the understanding of these results in a peripheral economic geographical context. The article argues for caution in applying the same kind of policy recommendations for urban and peripheral regions based on the analysis of the creative class.
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