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    What makes SMEs more likely to collaborate? Analysing the role of regional policy

    Caloffi, A. and Rossi, Federica and Russo, M. (2015) What makes SMEs more likely to collaborate? Analysing the role of regional policy. European Planning Studies 23 (7), pp. 1245-1264. ISSN 0965-4313.

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    Abstract

    The last twenty years have witnessed the diffusion of regional innovation policies supporting networks of innovators. The underlying aim of these policies is to encourage firms, particularly SMEs, to undertake collaborations with organisations possessing complementary knowledge. Focusing on a set of SMEs that have participated, over time, in several innovation networks funded by the same regional government, the paper investigates how their relationships have evolved with respect to the following aspects: (i) reiteration of pre-existing relationships as opposed to experimentation of new relationships; (ii) collaboration with organisations possessing complementary rather than similar knowledge and competencies; (iii) creation of local relationships rather than experimentation of extra-local collaborations; (iv) reliance upon intermediaries to connect with other organisations. Our findings reveal that the involvement in these policy-supported networks changed the firms’ relational patterns, leading them to collaborate with a wider variety of agents than those with whom they were linked before the policies. Sectoral heterogeneity had a negative effect on the probability to collaborate, while co-localisation increased the likelihood to collaborate. Mutual involvement with intermediaries also had a positive effect. However, in the case of firm-to-university relationships only specialized intermediaries were likely to perform a positive role and, therefore, encourage networking.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Planning Studies, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2014.919250
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): innovation policy, innovation networks, dyadic relationships, regional policy
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Business School
    Research Centres and Institutes: Innovation Management Research, Birkbeck Centre for
    Depositing User: Federica Rossi
    Date Deposited: 23 Sep 2014 12:55
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:12
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/10583

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