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AbstractRegional economic adaptability is a classical topic in economic geography. Studying the fall and necessary restructuring and adaptability of regional economies has a long tradition in Europe, whereas the non‐Western world is a blind spot particularly concerning the use of newer evolutionary theoretical concepts in analysing and explaining regional economic adaptability. The aim of this special issue is therefore to put an evolutionary perspective on industrial dynamics and regional economic adaptability in non‐Western countries, and by doing that to contribute to theorising back from non‐Western countries to mainly Western concepts on regional economic adaptability.

Abstract
Although evolutionary economic geography has been popular in economic geography, it has also been criticized for, among others, a weak geographical conceptualization, which has become evident, particularly in empirical research on related and unrelated variety. Therefore, this paper advances a spatial ontology, which is embedded in critical realism and social constructivism, and will empower evolutionary economic geography to understand and explain the impact of both economic crises and grand societal challenges on regional economic change, in a more place and scale-sensitive manner. Moreover, and relatedly, it will enable a better understanding of the main drivers of regional economic change.

AbstractDrawing upon critical realism and the literature on theorising in social sciences, this article contributes to the understanding of theorising in economic geography by highlighting the role of context throughout the theory development process. By critically reviewing two key concepts in economic geography—related variety and knowledge bases—from a critical realist theory development perspective, scholars' sensitivity to local context through the whole theorising process is examined. We argue that the particular strength of economic geography with regard to advancing theory lies in the continuous application of concepts and theories (that is, generalities) within new contexts (that is, confrontation with new particularities).

AbstractIn recent decades, while place‐based policies and local development have attracted the interest of institutional economic geography, the issue of features of certain industries and how they are shaping and shaped by institutions at multiple spatial scales, has not been taken up sufficiently. This paper, based on a local creative industry—the Shanghai online games industry, which is an essential part of the new media sector, takes issue with it. It explores two aspects, namely how multi‐scalar institutions relate and influence the development of the online games industry in Shanghai and how local firms and entrepreneurs affect local and national institutions. It shows that the three aspects that are related to media sector in general and games industry in particular (i.e., cultural influence, technological significance, and economic value) matter much as they have resulted in diverse industry‐relevant policies and regulations devised by local and national states. Moreover, local firms and entrepreneurs with different capacities and characteristics also differ much in influencing the design of the industry‐specific institutions in the face of institutional voids.

Strengthening innovation capacity of European small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by means of their participation in the Sixth (FP6-SME) and Seventh (FP7-SME) Framework Programmes was an important objective of the European Union policies. Since SMEs form the backbone of the Italian economy, their strong presence in an international network such as the one fostered by the European Union represent a great opportunity, particularly for firms located in southern Italy – the marginal macro-area of the country in terms of innovation – to increase their competitiveness. Based on the major literature on topics such as knowledge exchange, innovation networks and disparities, and on descriptive statistics and a cluster analysis in a dynamic perspective, our study aimed to assess the actual intra-regional, extra-regional and transnational links established by the Italian SMEs and public research establishments (PREs). In a next step we aim at assessing if knowledge flows fostered by the FP6-SME and FP7-SME were mainly concentrated in the traditionally winning macro-regional areas (North and Centre) or led to more widespread benefits in favour of SMEs located in the marginal South. The findings of our study revealed a very limited number of connections - with a related weak knowledge exchange - involving the southern regions, implying a reinforcement of innovation activities in the traditionally most dynamic industrial areas of the country.

Strengthening innovation capacity of European small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by means of their participation in the Sixth (FP6-SME) and Seventh (FP7-SME) Framework Programmes was an important objective of the European Union policies. Since SMEs form the backbone of the Italian economy, their strong presence in an international network such as the one fostered by the European Union represent a great opportunity, particularly for firms located in southern Italy - the marginal macro-area of the country in terms of innovation - to increase their competitiveness. Based on the major literature on topics such as knowledge exchange, innovation networks and disparities, and on descriptive statistics and a cluster analysis in a dynamic perspective, our study aimed to assess the actual intra-regional, extra-regional and transnational links established by the Italian SMEs and public research establishments (PREs). In a next step we aim at assessing if knowledge flows fostered by the FP6-SME and FP7-SME were mainly concentrated in the traditionally winning macro-regional areas (North and Centre) or led to more widespread benefits in favour of SMEs located in the marginal South. The findings of our study revealed a very limited number of connections - with a related weak knowledge exchange - involving the southern regions, implying a reinforcement of innovation activities in the traditionally most dynamic industrial areas of the country.