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The present work compares rates of innovative activity among firms located in peripheral dynamic and central lagging areas of the European Union. Data on 600 businesses located in twelve areas, in six countries of the EU were collected in the framework of an EU- funded research project (Aspatial Peripherality, Innovation and the Rural Economy- AsPIRE- QLK5-2000-00783). Empirical evidence shows that the regional rate of innovative activity is very well predicted by easily observable firm characteristics. Oaxaca-Blinder like decompositions between the difference in rates of innovative activity in peripheral and more central areas are undertaken. Decompositions show that the major part of the observed differential innovative activity rates is unobservable, i.e., it is due to unobserved characteristics and not due to observable firm characteristics. Unobserved characteristics may be either firm specific (human and entrepreneurial capital, etc.) or region specific (institutional environment, social capital, traditional economic factors, etc.) and constitute an unobserved type of innovation specific 'untraded interdependencies'. This conclusion is important for planning policies to support innovation and especially to the regionalization of innovation policies. -

European rural development policy has supported the production of local and regionally denominated food as a mean to differentiate agricultural production and rural tourism as a mean to diversify rural employment. The aim of the present work is to address the tourists' decision to buy local food products while visiting lagging rural areas and the amount of money spent over these products. The findings of this work should be of particular interest to practitioners of rural development as they point out to possible market segmentation and communication potentials and reflect on differences between accessible and less accessible rural areas.

Tourists' perception of regional image is critical as regards the degree of satisfaction obtained from the overall tourism experience. The present paper analyses the ways in which a region's image is incorporated into the tourist products and the overall tourism experience. Regional image is acknowledged to entail elements of the socio-cultural, environmental and historical heritage of a region. The latter affect the quality of the tourist product as perceived by the tourists. Consequently, they also affect the tourist's subjective judgement of satisfaction based on the quality of the tourism experience they have 'consumed'. The present paper utilizes data drawn from an EU Research Project (SPRITE QLK5-CT-2000-01211) survey conducted in two regional sites of rural tourism in Greece. Analysis and results focus especially on comparisons between the two study regions. Further, policy implications as regards the development of the rural tourism product, are also discussed.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Figures, maps and tables -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1: The evolution of the agricultural sector -- A physical and historical background -- The role of agriculture in the economy -- Production patterns and consumption tendencies -- Bibliography -- 2: Rural environment and agricultural institutions -- Agriculture and the rural environment -- Institutions for agricultural and rural development -- Bibliography -- 3: Agriculture and the macroeconomic environment -- Inflation, overvalued currency and green rates -- Inflation and land rates -- Inflation, interest rates and the cost of capital -- Taxation -- Restructuring and terms of trade in agriculture -- Disincentives -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 4: Agricultural, regional and structural policies -- The pre- and post-accession agricultural regional and structural policies -- Bibliography -- 5: The impact of policies for the rural sector -- The evolution of agricultural production and trade -- The evolution of farm income and its distribution -- Characteristics of employment -- Factors influencing policy success -- Bibliography -- 6: International developments and perspectives for Greek agriculture -- The CAP reform and the Uruguay Round -- The market liberalization process in Central Eastern Europe, the Balkan and the Black Sea Region (CEECs) -- The EU enlargement to the CEECs and the need for reform -- Perspectives for Greek agriculture -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 7: The framework for an integrated strategy for sustainable rural development -- Guidelines for national regional and intersectoral policies -- Central elements of the restructuring process towards sustainable rural development -- Toward an increased, mutually beneficial, economic cooperation with Central Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Black Sea Region

PurposeThis work sets out to explore the effects of ISO 9001 on productive efficiency of firms.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 1,572 firms from three Greek manufacturing industries is used for empirical work. The firms are from the food and beverages industries, the machineries industries as well as from the electrical and electronics appliances manufacturing industries and include both adopters and non‐adopters of ISO 9001. A stochastic frontier methodological approach is adopted and the effects of ISO 9001 can be modeled in four ways: as a managerial input alongside the conventional inputs of capital and labor, as a factor affecting technical inefficiency, as an input and a factor affecting technical inefficiency and as having no effect at all.FindingsISO 9001 operates as a factor affecting technical inefficiency with non‐neutral effects on capital and labor. The combined effect of ISO 9001 with capital increases the level of technical inefficiency reflecting adjustment costs incurred when ISO 9001 is adopted. The combined effect of ISO 9001 with labor decreases the level of technical inefficiency reflecting the positive result of ISO 9001 on reducing x‐inefficiency.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis isolates the effects of ISO 9001 on capital and labor but specific case studies are necessary in order to reveal managerial best practices that confront negative and support positive effects of ISO 9001 adoption within firms.Originality/valueThe paper illustrates that ISO 9001 is a managerial factor reducing productive inefficiency.

Small and medium sized enterprises operate within a complex web of links of various kinds. These may be distinguished in terms of their content (transactional, advisory, regulatory, social), "object" (other SMEs, third sector organisations, business services, local and national government), geography (local,regional, global), and durability (transient, permanent, frequent, irregular). A simpler categorisation might be between "hard" linkages involving a recorded transaction of some kind, and "soft" informal interation involving only information. Several schools of thought on local economic development emphasise either or both these types of interaction as important factors in local development dynamics. This is a particularily important group of concepts in relation to peripheral regions, where local opportunities for interaction are constrained, and longer distance relationships are more difficult and expensive. This paper begins with a review of recent research relating to business networks,focusing as far as possible on work relating to rural and peripheral areas, and including relevant aspects of the concepts of social capital, governance and "institutional thickness". This will be drawn together in the form of a number of hypotheses regarding the role of different forms of interaction in determining the degree of economic vitality in peripheral regions. The validity of these hypotheses will then be examined in the light of case-study data relating to twelve regions (six peripheral, six more accessible) in Scotland, Finland, Germany, Spain and Greece. Drawing predominantly on a survey of 600 SMEs, the discussion is structured into the following four themes: The geography of transactional linkages Other aspects of transactional linkages Links with third sector organisactions Links with local, regional and national government agencies. The paper will conclude with a review of the hypotheses and an integrated assessment of the impact of all kinds of networks on regional economic performance. The information presented in this paper has been derived from research funded by the EU Fifth Framework, as part of project QLK5-2000-00783 - Aspatial Peripherality, Innovation and the Rural Economy (AsPIRE).

The paper presents the processes of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation and its impact on rural business growth. Data are derived from four surveys on rural businesses in mountainous and less favoured areas in Southern Europe. Formal pathways of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation refer to education and training, while informal pathways include the cognitive processes of work and managerial experience acquisition and the non-cognitive processes of being raised within an entrepreneurial family environment and/or being raised in the area within which the business is later set-up. The studies reveal that there is a variety of processes of entrepreneurial human capital and knowledge accumulation that are case study specific. Human capital accumulation processes related to education and training or to work and managerial experience still plays the prime role in predicting successful businesses. Results indicate the need for decentralised, flexible and selective entrepreneurial human capital accumulation support programmes that take into account local idiosyncrasies and needs.