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Since the beginning of the 1980s, British trade unions have experienced a dramatic retreat, marked by rapidly falling membership and declining industrial power. The authors examine the regional dimensions of this retreat of organised labour, paying particular attention to: The resilience of the unions' historical heartland areas. The impact of economic restructuring on local union traditions. The shrinking landscape of industrial militancy. The geographical decentralization of the new industrial relations. The link between these factors and the more general debate on regional development and regional labour markets. An important synthesis of economic geography and industrial relations work, this book marks a major contribution towards the newly emerging field of labour geography
Since the beginning of the 1980s, British trade unions have experienced a dramatic retreat, marked by rapidly falling memberships and declining industrial power. The authors examine the regional dimensions of this retreat of organized labour, paying particular attention to the resilience of the unions' historical heartland areas, the impact of economic restructuring on local union traditions, the shrinking landscape of industrial militancy, the geographical decentralization of the new industrial relations, and the link between these factors and the more general debate on regional development and regional labour markets. An important synthesis of economic geography and industrial relations work, this book marks a major contribution towards the newly emerging field of labour geography.
The aim of this book is to consider theoretically the notion of the global competitiveness of regions, as well as giving attention as to how such competitiveness may be empirically measured. With this in mind, the book has three specific objectives: first, to place the concept of regional competitiveness within the context of regional economic development theory; second, to present a rationale and method for quantifying the global competitiveness of regions; and, third, to undertake the most geographically widespread analysis of regional competitiveness differences across the globe. With regard to the third goal, the analysis incorporates more than 500 regions across Europe, North and South America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The importance of the concept of competitiveness has increased rapidly in recent years, with the issues surrounding it becoming, at the same time, more empirically refined and theoretically complex. The focus on regions reflects the growing consensus that they are the primary spatial units that compete to attract investment, and it is at the regional level that knowledge is circulated and transferred, resulting in agglomerations, or clusters, of industrial and service sector enterprises. This growing acknowledgement of the region’s role as a key spatial unit of organisation has led to attention turning to competitiveness at a more regional level. The book explores the results of the World Competitiveness Index of Regions (WCIR), covering the rankings and results of the 2014 edition. The WCIR provides a tool for analysing the development of a range of regional economies across the globe. It enables an illustration of the changing patterns of regional competitiveness on the international stage to be generated. In fundamental terms, the WCIR aims to produce an integrated and overall benchmark of the knowledge capacity, capability, and sustainability of each region, and the extent to which this knowledge is translated into economic value and transferred into the wealth of the citizens of each region.
"Across Europe, regional development agencies (RDAs) have become a central feature of regional policy, both as innovative policy-makers and as the implementers of programmes and initiatives originating from the national or European level. Since the first generation of RDAs were established in the 1970s and 1980s, major changes have swept through the policy arena: - globalisation has increased competitive pressure and moved the position of regions in the international division of labour to the forefront of regional strategy-making - the digital revolution and the EU Lisbon agenda have highlighted the importance of production and access to knowledge as key factors in regional competitiveness - regional policy has become part of a wider system of multi-level governance so that their geographical horizon has expanded in terms of sponsors and collaborators - issues of governance and accountability of RDAs have been one of the drivers to devolution of powers to governments and bodies below the level of the nation state, raising questions over their status and distance from political control. The aim of this book is to develop a profile of the next generation of RDAs that will identify key issues and trends regarding: policy aims, strategy-making and the new role of knowledge; the organisation of policy delivery, with emphasis on interactive knowledge brokerage; the organisational shift towards smaller and more flexible RDAs; and the political governance of regional policy. By drawing on a combination of conceptual reflection, surveys, comparative research, and systematic use of critical case studies, the book provides a new point of reference by identifying key features of the current, and, indeed next, generation of regionally-based economic development organisations"--
This book shows, first of all, that leadership plays a crucial role in reinventing regions and branching out from an old path to something new in order to create more balanced and sustainable regional development. Second, it maintains that leadership is not a solo but a multi-agent and -level activity and that it needs to be discussed and studied as such. Third, as the book argues, leadership is shaped differently in various institutional and cultural contexts and on different scales. This book explores the ways leadership plays our in regional development context contributing to economically, socially and ecologically balanced sustainable future.
The life sciences is an industrial sector that covers the development of biological products and the use of biological processes in the production of goods, services and energy. This sector is frequently presented as a major opportunity for policy-makers to upgrade and renew regional economies, leading to social and economic development through support for high-tech innovation. Innovation, Regional Development and the Life Sciences analyses where innovation happens in the life sciences, why it happens in those places, and what this means for regional development policies and strategies. Focusing on the UK and Europe, its arguments are relevant to a variety of countries and regions pursuing high-tech innovation and development policies. The book’s theoretical approach incorporates diverse geographies (e.g. global, national and regional) and political-economic forces (e.g. discourses, governance and finance) in order to understand where innovation happens in the life sciences, where and how value circulates in the life sciences, and who captures the value produced in life sciences innovation. This book will be of interest to researchers, students and policy-makers dealing with regional/local economic development.
Regions in Europe explores the state of regional politics in an increasingly integrated Europe. It argues that the predicted rise of increased political power at the regional level has failed to materialise and is fraught with paradox. In doing so this study locates regions in relation to European integration, globalisation, the nation state, local government, and comparative and national perspectives. Using case studies of the main players in Europe including: * Germany * France * UK * Italy * Spain * the Netherlands * Belgium. the contributors show how and why European regions remain remarkably weak in European governance.
In an increasingly globalised world, paradoxically regional innovation clusters have moved to the forefront of attention as a strategy for economic and social development. Transcending international success cases, like Silicon Valley and Route 128, as sources of lessons, successful high tech clusters in niche areas have had a significant impact on peripheral regions. Are these successful innovation clusters born or made? If they are subject to planning and direction, what is the shape that it takes: top down, bottom up or lateral?
Turbulence characterises the current global scene. This book uses complementary theoretical approaches to understand and help prescribe policies to ‘re-frame’ the regional development problem in turbulent times. These approaches are: evolutionary complexity; evolutionary economic geography; emergence theory; and resilience theory. From below, they address the four major crises creating a ‘perfect storm’ for societies and economics involving: the climate change crisis; the energy crisis; the banking and financial crisis; and the global economic crisis. This book analyses and proposes ways in which regional economies, in particular, are having to be ‘reframed’ to address these crises. First, many must evolve in new ways, possibly moving back from the ‘service economy’ towards a new, greener form of manufacturing of goods as well as services. Accordingly, regional economies are innovating in new ways. Amongst these are the quest for ‘relatedness’ within their own regional orbits, and promoting ‘modularity’ as a mode of analysis and a policy stance to stimulate innovation across industry and geographical borders. Finally, regional economies and societies are discovering that, from a ‘resilience’ perspective, they must find answers to the higher levels of governance with which they increasingly struggle. In this respect regional economies are in ‘transition’ and regional processes are ‘emergent’. The transition seeks to address the four crises, involving re-balancing, re-directing and re-framing future policy and practice. This book describes many of the novel ‘framings’ involved in understanding the new ways in which this major task is being addressed in theory, policy and everyday practice.