Pulled or pushed? The spatial diffusion of wind energy between local demand and supply

This article contributes to and connects the literature on spatial innovation diffusion, entrepreneurship, and industry life-cycles by disentangling the relevance of local demand and supply in the adoption of wind energy production. More precisely, we evaluate the strength of local supply–push effects with those of local demand–pull over the course of the evolution of an industry and its main product evolution. By using Bayesian survival models with time-dependent data of wind turbine deployment and firm foundation for 402 German regions between the years 1970 and 2015, we show that the spatial evolution of the German wind energy industry was more strongly influenced by local demand–pull than local supply–push processes. New producers are found to emerge in proximity to existing local demand for wind turbines. No evidence was found for producers being able to create local demand for their products by pushing the adoption of the technology in their regions.

The Extent of Product Innovation

This chapter analyses data on indicators of the prevalence of product innovation. Analysis of survey data indicated that, in the three years before the 2012 CIS survey, about 25 per cent of all firms in the twenty-seven EU member states undertook product innovation. New-to-firm was more frequent than new-to-market. Differences across sectors, regions, and firm size are analysed. Further international comparisons are made. This analysis is supplemented by consideration of the extent of new product launches in a series of different industries using other data. It is observed that many new products are not significantly different from existing products. A prior study of barcode data indicates that over a nine-year period there was a 78 per cent entry rate for new products and a 72 per cent exit rate. The possibility of industry life cycles to which product innovation activity may be linked is also discussed.

Industry life cycles of a resource town in Finland – the case of Lieksa

The article aims to show how local industry life cycles impact the development of Finnish resource-based rural towns. This study reveals five long-term and overlapping industry cycles which were based on natural resources, assembly industries and service production. In general, the cycles have shortened over time. Transitions from cycle to cycle were enabled by the phases of resilience, which were highly dependent on political and economic processes at different scales. However, the political interventions of the last decades were unable to compensate for the disadvantages in competitiveness of this remote area and lay sustainable foundations for new industries. In the long run, the only exception has been the forest-related processing industry which has a capacity to renew its own operations and adapt to changing market situations. The results demonstrate the high significance of absolute advantage in rural development

The role of strategic alliances in complementing firm capabilities

Strategic alliance research emerged to explain alliance formation based upon transaction cost minimisation and opportunism reduction. Later research, and early research from Japan, emphasised the role of alliances in facilitating the transfer of knowledge between organisations. Most recently, alliance research has focussed on the development of shared, potentially idiosyncratic, resource stocks. This paper builds on this recent research, testing the proposition that alliances are important vehicles allowing firms to access or acquire external resources, hence shoring up capability gaps and building new capabilities as required during firm, product and industry life cycles. Using a sample from Australian manufacturing small-and-medium-sized enterprises, the paper reveals that alliances employed by firms can be viewed as initiatives to either fill a gap in the firm's resource stock or to exploit a perceived opportunity in its operational and strategic environment.

The role of strategic alliances in complementing firm capabilities

Strategic alliance research emerged to explain alliance formation based upon transaction cost minimisation and opportunism reduction. Later research, and early research from Japan, emphasised the role of alliances in facilitating the transfer of knowledge between organisations. Most recently, alliance research has focussed on the development of shared, potentially idiosyncratic, resource stocks. This paper builds on this recent research, testing the proposition that alliances are important vehicles allowing firms to access or acquire external resources, hence shoring up capability gaps and building new capabilities as required during firm, product and industry life cycles. Using a sample from Australian manufacturing small-and-medium-sized enterprises, the paper reveals that alliances employed by firms can be viewed as initiatives to either fill a gap in the firm's resource stock or to exploit a perceived opportunity in its operational and strategic environment.