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Innovations, Regions and Projects

Studies in new forms of knowledge governance. Nordregio Report 2003:3

This report analyzes new forms of knowledge governance in the global economy, using comparative studies of European industries and regions. We discuss how new organisational forms are affected by corporate governance, company culture and institutional constraints. The three core ideas of the report are:

• Firms, industries, and clusters who know how to use temporary organisations, in particular projects, for new knowledge generation, and utlization are able to access, transform, and exploit knowledge for economic useful purposes better and faster than those who do not.

• Successful utilization of temporary organizations (projects) depends on the knowledge base of firms, industries, and clusters, but also, more importantly, on institutional context (business system), spatial system, and development coalitions within which projects and project ecologies are embedded.

• Temporary organizations (projects) are used in increasingly new ways across different industries and clusters, as they become more deeply integrated into the learning processes, transforming the way business systems and their innovation systems operates.