Prior institutional thickness stabilizes old industries and blocks new regional identities

Evidence

One means of increasing regional innovative capacity is by creating institutions. This often proves an inadequate solution, however (see Amin and Thrift, 1994). Harder to achieve is the development of a new regional identity and the generation of synergy effects between institutional and technological development paths. This is the task faced by especially those regions which have been very successful in the past, and which have achieved a high level of technological competence in so-called mature industrial sectors. For these regions, the hitherto established institutions and the institutional thickness thus achieved can even become an additional problem, since training, research and funding facilities tend to stabilize the traditional patterns of industrial development. … Against a background of intensified global competition, this problem of institutional inertia and restrictions deserves special attention. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 930

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the earlier discussion of institutional inertia into a paradox: the very institutions that made a region successful become the obstacles to its renewal.