Rethinking Clusters: Place-based Value Creation in Sustainability Transitions (Sustainable Development Goals Series) 3030619222, 9783030619220

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Sustainable Development Goals Series Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Silvia Rita Sedita Silvia Blasi   Editors

Rethinking Clusters

Place-based Value Creation in Sustainability Transitions

Sustainable Development Goals Series

World leaders adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Providing in-depth knowledge, this series fosters comprehensive research on these global targets to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change. The sustainability of our planet is currently a major concern for the global community and has been a central theme for a number of major global initiatives in recent years. Perceiving a dire need for concrete benchmarks toward sustainable development, the United Nations and world leaders formulated the targets that make up the seventeen goals. The SDGs call for action by all countries to promote prosperity while protecting Earth and its life support systems. This series on the Sustainable Development Goals aims to provide a comprehensive platform for scientific, teaching and research communities working on various global issues in the field of geography, earth sciences, environmental science, social sciences, engineering, policy, planning, and human geosciences in order to contribute knowledge towards achieving the current 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This Series is organized into eighteen subseries: one based around each of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, and an eighteenth subseries, “Connecting the Goals,” which serves as a home for volumes addressing multiple goals or studying the SDGs as a whole. Each subseries is guided by an expert Subseries Advisor. Contributions are welcome from scientists, policy makers and researchers working in fields related to any of the SDGs. If you are interested in contributing to the series, please contact the Publisher: Zachary Romano [[email protected]]. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15486

Silvia Rita Sedita  •  Silvia Blasi Editors

Rethinking Clusters Place-based Value Creation in Sustainability Transitions

Editors Silvia Rita Sedita Department of Economics and Management University of Padova Padova, Italy

Silvia Blasi Department of Economics and Management University of Padova Padova, Italy

ISSN 2523-3084     ISSN 2523-3092 (electronic) Sustainable Development Goals Series ISBN 978-3-030-61922-0    ISBN 978-3-030-61923-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61923-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

The book is inspired by the discussions held at the University of Padova in 2019, during the second international workshop on Rethinking Clusters: The local and global scale of sustainability transitions. Some of the chapters are revised versions of papers presented at the workshop, others are novel contributions collected through an open call to members of the community of scholars interested in the topic. The book is addressed to scholars working on sustainable development issues intersecting the disciplines of Regional Studies, Economic Geography, and Management. In particular, it would appeal to geographers, economic development, business innovation, as well as sustainability transitions researchers. The book could be used in an economic geography class or a sustainability and technology transition class. Moreover, the present volume represents not only an interesting contribution within the academic landscape, but could also be of support to professionals in charge of designing policies for sustaining the development of regions and consultants working for companies oriented to embrace the goals of social and environmental sustainability.

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Foreword

This edited volume, craftfully put together by Silvia Rita Sedita and Silvia Blasi, resonates with a shift in thinking around regional development that reflects both a departure from and a continuation of previous research on regional economic dynamics, agglomerations, and clusters. Extant theory in regional studies has for many decades emphasized the embeddedness of localized production and innovation systems in concrete territorial contexts, emphasizing how local capabilities, networks, and institutions enable and constrain regional development pathways. Celebrating conceptual and methodological pluralism, it has demonstrated the virtues and productive force of research that does not stop short of disciplinary traditions and fault- lines. Already in early work in Italy’s industrial districts, the recursive relationships between territory, economy, and society have been at the heart of theorizing regional development and of investigating the emancipatory and progressive potential of innovation, knowledge, and learning economies (Asheim, 2000). This resulted in well-known theoretical frameworks like regional innovation systems, learning regions, and clusters that are widely used not only to inform empirical analysis but that have also become poignant framings for policy design, implementation, and evaluation. While originating from “niche” heterodox economic thinking, this scholarly literature has become increasingly mainstream and influential over the past three to four decades. Its coming-of-age really became manifest through the introduction and adoption of Smart Specialisation as the designated approach for EU regional development policy. Since 2014, any EU region applying for EU Structural Funds must have a Smart Specialisation strategy in place, with €80 billion made available to S3 initiatives between 2014 and 2020. The adoption of Smart Specialisation as a core EU policy concept and conditionality for funding witnesses the maturation of innovation-based regional development thinking and practice and the successful evolution of what once were considered rather peripheral themes or topic for regional policy (Foray, 2015). Academic ideas around endogenous regional development, place-based innovation, entrepreneurship, and value creation have gained enormous political traction over time. The collection of chapters in this edited volume pays tribute and testimony to the rising star of academic work on regional development and innovation yet challenges this body of literature by embracing a more expansive understanding of value creation. A key contribution of the book concerns its departure from conventional contributions in the literature on regional development and innovation by transcending a largely economic understanding of value vii

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creation geared to competitiveness and prosperity alone. Motivated by the persistent challenges of environmental and social sustainability imperatives, it calls greater attention for the directionality of regional development. In doing so, it puts increased primacy on what for a considerable time have been considered (negative) side effects of economic development and growth, notably climate change and other environmental “externalities” as well as growing social inequality and political polarization. Considering the multiple crises that many regions are currently facing, such a holistic understanding of regional development and value creation is really overdue. As such, the chapters in this book make a welcome addition to the recent “normative turn” in regional innovation policy and studies. In the words of Uyarra et al. (2019, p. 2359), increased prevalence of social and environmental development externalities “has shifted the debate on the rationales for intervention from market and system failures to accommodate more transformative views but also other approaches rooted in the notion of public value and has led innovation scholars to question not just the how and how much of innovation but also key issues of directionality, legitimacy and responsibility.” A more explicit and expansive engagement with value creation thus requires asking questions such as what future do we want, why do we want this future, who defines it, and transformation by and for whom? As many chapters demonstrate, this extends our analytical gaze towards more capacious forms of innovation that encompass technological, social, grassroot, and public-sector innovation (Coenen & Morgan, 2020), opens our eyes to the potential dark sides of innovation (Biggi & Giuliani, 2020), and effectively opens up a more contested view on innovation and regional development that forefronts the notion of responsibility (Jakobsen, Fløysand, & Overton, 2019). While refreshing and original on many accounts, the book remains however loyal to a central premise in the regional development literature namely that of being empirically grounded and place-based. In investigating expansively the value of innovation (Mazzucato, 2018), this volume and its respective chapters thus afford a timely perspective on the role of clusters, local development, “green” industry dynamics, local production systems, and social entrepreneurship for regional futures. Conceptually it makes productive use of the emerging trading zones between sustainable transitions theory and literature on place-based innovation. Methodologically, it breaks however beyond the usual mold of qualitative case studies and adds richness and flexibility in terms of use of quantitative data and multi-methods of analysis beyond the usual suspects. In toto, I would therefore like to congratulate the editors and authors for pulling together such an accomplished, constructive yet off-thebeaten-track contribution to the geography of innovation and sustainability transitions that provides useful and much-needed inspiration for the coming “decade of action” for realizing the UNs Sustainable Development Goals. Lars Coenen The Mohn Centre for Innovation and Regional Development, Western Norway University of Applied Science & Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

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References Asheim, B. T. (2000). Industrial districts: The contributions of Marshall and beyond. In G. Clark, M. Feldman, & M. Gertler (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of economic geography (pp. 413–431). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Biggi, G., & Giuliani, E. (2020). The noxious consequences of innovation: What do we know? Industry and Innovation. https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2020.1726729. Coenen, L., & Morgan, K. (2020). Evolving geographies of innovation: Existing paradigms, critiques and possible alternatives. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift-Norwegian Journal of Geography, 74(1), 13–24. Foray, D. (2015). Smart specialisation: Opportunities and challenges for regional innovation policy. London: Routledge. Jakobsen, S. E., Fløysand, A., & Overton, J. (2019). Expanding the field of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)—From responsible research to responsible innovation. European Planning Studies, 27(12), 2329–2343. Mazzucato, M. (2018). The value of everything: Making and taking in the global economy. London: Hachette. Uyarra, E., Ribeiro, B., & Dale-Clough, L. (2019). Exploring the normative turn in regional innovation policy: Responsibility and the quest for public value. European Planning Studies, 27(12), 2359–2375.

Contents

Part I Linking Sustainability, Innovation and Regional Development  Unravelling the Sustainable Resilient Region: Exploring Regional Resilience in Sustainable Transition��������������������   3 Stefania Oliva and Luciana Lazzeretti  Green Invention as Leverage for Economic Growth in Locally Collaborative European Regions������������������������������������������  17 Ivan De Noni, Andrea Ganzaroli, and Luigi Orsi  Regional Differences in the Generation of Green Technologies: The Role of Local Recombinant Capabilities and Academic Inventors����������������������������������������������������  33 Gianluca Orsatti, Francesco Quatraro, and Alessandra Scandura  Spin-offs, Environmental KIBS and the Role of Universities for Sustainability������������������������������������������������������������  53 Eleonora Di Maria, Valentina De Marchi, and Elena Bonel  The Role of the DSOs in the Energy Transition Towards Sustainability. A Case Study from Italy ��������������������������������  65 Marina Bertolini and Silvia Blasi Part II The Sustainability Turn in Clusters and Industrial Districts Bioclusters and Sustainable Regional Development ����������������������������  81 Frans L. P. Hermans Industry Clusters, Intermediary Activities and Sustainable Transitions: A Call for Integration of Multiple Conceptual Frameworks? ��������������������������������������������������  93 Rowena Vnuk and Allan O’Connor  Rethinking Clusters in the Sense of Innovation, Inclusion, and Green Growth ���������������������������������������������������������������� 101 Iván G. Peyré Tartaruga and Fernanda Queiroz Sperotto

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 Factors of Environmental Sustainability in Italian Industrial Districts: A Composite Environmental Sustainability Index �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 111 Marco Bellandi, Maria J. Ruiz-Fuensanta, and Erica Santini  The Circular Economy in the Tuscan Fashion Industry: A Value Chain Approach ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 125 Natalia Faraoni, Tommaso Ferraresi, and Sara Turchetti Part III The Sustainability Orientation on Entrepreneurial Actions  How to Successfully Translate Shared Value Agendas into Action? Evidences from the Case of 21 Invest �������������� 143 Fernando G. Alberti and Federica Belfanti  Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Between Global North and Global South: The Ashoka Case�������������� 159 Edoardo Bega, Luca Mongelli, Francesco Rullani, and Silvia Rita Sedita  Social Entrepreneurship: Determinants of Action in Italy������������������ 175 Silvia Rita Sedita and Alan Trovò  Environmental Innovations and Green Skills in the Nordic Countries �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 195 Christian Richter Østergaard, Jacob Rubæk Holm, Eric Iversen, Torben Schubert, Asgeir Skålholt, and Markku Sotarauta  The Impact of End-User Aggregation on the Electricity Business Ecosystem: Evidence from Europe���������� 213 Alessandro Barbiero, Silvia Blasi, and Jan Marc Schwidtal Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  227

Contents

Introduction

This book addresses a cogent aspect of regional development: how to pursue a sustainable development transforming the modalities of value creation. There is a growing awareness that GDP and other traditional economic statistics suffer from not being able to grasp the impact of the economic growth on the environment and the society at large. This lack of attention for the side effects of myopic trajectories of regional development generated in the long run unexpected negative externalities, in terms of increased inequalities and general social discontent (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018). Hence, we are stimulated by the opportunity to understand how regional structures and organizations may significantly play a crucial role in changing the nature and impact of the value generation process. In this perspective, new organizational forms and business models offer the opportunity to reach the objective of a sustainable economic, social, and environmental development path, which need to be sustained by specific policy interventions. As a consequence, regional dynamics should be reshaped by shifting attention from purely economic performance indicators to others, more capable of monitoring the capacity of regions to create value in a way that endorses a sustainable development trajectory. Sustainability is a socially founded, policy- and action-oriented multidimensional concept. It is grabbing a lot of attention among scholars from various disciplines and eventually leads to the establishment of a research area known as “sustainability science” (Clark & Dickson, 2003; Swart, Raskin, & Robinson, 2004). Since the late 1980s the sustainability concept has been at the center of not only the natural environmental sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, and biology) but also other environmental subdisciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics, law, and philosophy (Robinson, 2004). In particular, topics related to sustainability transition have attracted a lot of attention in the academia as a growing field of research that analyses co-­ evolution of new technologies, changes in markets, user practices, policy and cultural discourses, and governing institutions in a systemic perspective (Elzen, Geels, & Green, 2004; Geels, Hekkert, & Jacobsson, 2008; Smith, Voß, & Grin, 2010). Since 2007, when Walker and Shove (2007) note the importance of contextual factors such as the political environment and the anticipatory knowledge of local transition managers for transition processes, geographers have called for a detailed examination of the importance of place specificity for sustainability transitions (Lawhon & Murphy, 2012), and ­studies have indeed taken up this challenge. Scholars of sustainability transixiii

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tions have shown an increased interest in geographical aspects of sustainability transitions (Smith et  al., 2010), and investigated the complex and multidimensional shift towards sustainability in order to stimulate societies and economies to adopt sustainable modes of production and consumption in areas such as transport, energy, housing, agriculture and food, communication, and health care (Geels, 2005, 2011; Jacobsson & Bergek, 2004; Markard, Raven, & Truffer, 2012; Meijer & Hekkert, 2007; Rohracher, 2001; Smith, Stirling, & Berkhout, 2005). Transition is here understood as shifts or “system innovations” between distinctive socio-technical configurations encompassing not only new technologies, but also corresponding changes in markets, user practices, policy and cultural discourses, as well as governing institutions (Geels et al., 2008). However, the sustainability transition topic has been so far addressed adopting mono-disciplinary approaches, which fall short in analysing complex societal problems. This raises the necessity of adopting multidisciplinary approaches. Multidisciplinarity refers to a particular (policy) problem or an (other) observable phenomenon when different disciplinary viewpoints are adopted. This basically assumes the use of different scientific approaches (e.g., concepts, models, methods, findings) for the main aim of providing a coherent picture of the relevant problem, possible explanations as well as the best applicable solutions. In order to provide the most comprehensive picture of new sources of value creation, and a roadmap of sustainability oriented initiatives, the book collects contributions that tackle this issue from a variety of perspective. It is, in fact, necessary to adopt a systemic approach where the macro-, meso-, and micro-level of analysis are intertwined. The first part of the book adopts a macro-level approach linking sustainability, innovation, and regional development. The importance of urban and regional visions and policies reflects the necessity to mobilize the heterogeneous group of relevant local actors for sustainability transitions (Essletzbichler, 2012). In this section, authors point also to the role of intermediaries (organizations working between different social interests) in producing outcomes that would not have been realized without their involvement (Hodson & Marvin, 2010). This part illustrates possible regional development trajectories that favor sustainable innovation and transition. The first contribution of the book explores regional economic resilience as an important feature of regions that are able to react and recover from economic, social, and environmental crisis (Boschma, 2015; Fröhlich & Hassink, 2018). This is of particular interest because it allows to plan and organize local resources in a way that can sustain multiple development trajectories and to adapt to different types of shocks. A sustainable development is based on the capacity to re-organize the status quo evolving from less sustainable to more sustainable economic performance. The understanding of an analytical framework that can give insights in this direction is particularly timing. Stefania Oliva and Luciana Lazzeretti propose a theoretical contribution that investigates the relation between regional resilience and sustainability. Through a bibliometric analysis and a critical literature review, the authors summarize the relevant literature developed in the last decades in order to identify research strands and principal topics. In addition, they highlight

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under-researched themes and develop a research agenda for further studies. What emerges from the theoretical analysis is the power of the multidisciplinary nature of resilience and sustainability. This can favor dialogue between different disciplines, enlarge the domain of application, and benefit from multiple and diverse perspectives. Studying resilience in the field of sustainable transition can contribute to the emergence of the interconnections of ecosystems, society, and economic activities. Ivan De Noni, Andrea Ganzaroli, and Luigi Orsi focus on the idea that, by supporting a more creative process oriented to develop new environmental technologies, regions may facilitate a local application of these inventions within the industrial portfolio of the region, and consequently strengthen regional competitiveness and growth. Environmental innovation is receiving increasing attention from scholars and policymakers as a key driver in the development of a greener and more competitive economy. This study contributes to existing literature by investigating whether and to what extent green invention and green collaboration strengthen the competitiveness of regions and the significance of spatial proximity as a distinctive source of competitive advantage. Empirical evidence is based on a longitudinal analysis of 232 European regions over the period from 2000 to 2013. Data are organized by merging OECD RegPat, Cambridge Econometrics, and Eurostat databases. Their main results confirm the positive influence of green invention intensity, as well as intraregional green collaboration, on growth in regional competitiveness, with significant implications for policymakers. The other three contributions investigate the role of the intermediaries in the sustainable transition. In particular, Gianluca Orsatti, Francesco Quatraro, and Alessandra Scandura explore the contribution of academic inventors to define and promote new green technological trajectories in  local contexts. This chapter investigates the association between region-level recombinant capabilities and the generation of green technologies (GTs), together with their interplay with the intensity of academic involvement in innovation dynamics. The analysis focuses on Italian NUTS 3 regions, over the period 1998–2009. The main empirical evidence is that the local capacity to introduce novel combinations is positively and strongly associated with the generation of GTs, while the involvement of academic inventors in  local innovation dynamics shows an interesting compensatory role when local contexts lack such capacity. This study contributes to the literature opening the black box of green technologies and unveiling knowledge dynamics and related innovation capabilities at the regional level. Their results bear interesting policy implications for future regional development plans oriented to promote research and innovation in the green domain. Eleonora Di Maria, Valentina De Marchi, and Elena Bonel explore the role of universities in supporting the development of sustainability-oriented spin-­ offs. In particular, they focus on environmental knowledge-intensive business services (eKIBS) as peculiar spin-offs, who could exploit their interaction with universities for stimulating the implementation of circular economy practices in the region. KIBS are crucial actors because they can promote sustainability practices within regional innovation systems. KIBS are the type of intangible offering that uses and builds knowledge as primary component

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of value creation process (European Commission, 2012; Hervas-Oliver, Jackson, & Tomlinson, 2011; Lemus-Aguilar & Hidalgo, 2015). Based on five case studies of spin-offs originated at the University of Padova (Italy), the chapter suggests how universities support innovation in eKIBS, especially providing access to scientific frontiers and to physical, human, and reputational resources. As a consequence, universities can be considered important actors within a knowledge ecosystem able to support the sustainability transition of regions. Marina Bertolini and Silvia Blasi investigate the role of the Distribution System Operators (DSOs) in the electricity market, where they are increasingly holding a position of paramount importance in fuelling the energy transition. The objective of their study is the Italian energy system. Energy systems, and electricity systems in particular, have undergone radical transformations in recent years, mainly due to the growing awareness of environmental issues. The chapter aims at answering the following research questions: (1) Which are the main characteristics of DSO in Italy? (2) Which are the main factors that have led to the establishment of several DSOs in the same territory? (3) Is there a link between the DSO number and the energy communities in the same area? Their analysis suggests that some societal characteristics (represented by the tendency to aggregate in cooperatives), surely favored by territorial characteristics and needs, could accelerate the accomplishment of energy transition targets. Thus, regional specificities must be taken into account when planning actions for sustaining regional energy transitions. The second part of the book is dedicated to the spatial dimension of sustainable development. In particular clusters, industrial districts, and regions are here considered as relevant units of analysis (meso-level analysis). In different spaces, actors interact differently and create a variety of opportunities for sustainable value creation. This requires that social and entrepreneurial initiatives be merged with respect to ecological, human, social, and manufactured capital. Overall then, sustainable value creation and local economic development within the wider context of sustainable development require new entrepreneurial initiatives that focus on investing in the local environment, creating/strengthening local institutions, and employing people and their resources. It is important to start reflecting on how to research on the geography of sustainability, which is a very relevant yet understudied concept. The second part opens with an introduction to bioeconomy in general and bioclusters in particular, offered by Frans Hermans. A bioeconomy can be defined as an economy where the basic building blocks for materials, chemicals, and energy are derived from renewable biological resources (McCormick & Kautto, 2013). The bioeconomy has the potential to contribute to sustainable development by stimulating a shift away from fossil fuels, thereby combatting climate change and at the same time fostering innovations and regional and agricultural development (McCormick & Kautto, 2013). Bioclusters are expected to play a key role in the development of the bioeconomy (Zechendorf, 2011) and as a result, the promotion of bioclusters often features prominently in the bioeconomy policies of many countries (Dietz, Börner, Förster, & Von

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Braun, 2018). This chapter provides a theoretical view of bioclusters, which ends with the identification of four different types of bioclusters and with the development of some thoughts about their implications for supporting a sustainable development at different scales and levels. In the next chapter, Rowena Vnuk and Allan O’Connor see at industrial clusters, industrial districts, and related sectoral organizations as intermediary organizations, and examine sustainability transitions in terms of multiple contributions made by multiple actors seeking multiple outcomes within multiple industry sectors understood as dynamic systems. To achieve sustainable competitiveness for client firms, partners, regions, and sectors, this chapter proposes to adopt a multiple-level perspective, which necessarily asks for an integration of multiple conceptual frameworks. The authors introduce a model by which an intermediary organization at various geographical levels may seek to create, validate, and consolidate intermediary functions before taking a strong leadership in sustainability transitions, based on eight positional perspectives. Iván G. Peyré Tartaruga and Fernanda Queiroz Sperotto provide a contribution to the industrial cluster approach focusing on the role of inclusion in processes of innovation and, consequently, in economic development. At the basis of their arguments is the acknowledgement that we are living a technological revolution, which encompasses economic and societal aspects, by means of new products, new jobs, and new lifestyles. Which is the role of industrial clusters in soliciting social inclusion and environmental innovation? The findings of the study indicate important contributions for the understanding and formulation of innovation policies at the cluster level. Agglomerations help to bridge the gap between innovation paths and knowledge bases, via networks of production of interdependent firms and strategic partnerships and alliances with research institutes, universities, business services, bridging agents (consultants), customers, and civil society. Therefore, clusters appear as relevant units of analysis for pursuing sustainable development objectives. Marco Bellandi, María Jesús Ruiz Fuensanta, and Erica Santini investigate place-based factors of environmental strengths and weaknesses, looking in particular at industrial districts (IDs) as models of local production. Above all, the authors study the capabilities of SMEs, embedded in social networks of local communities, to assume environmental responsibility and reach environmental performance, paralleling shared value strategies by large firms. The authors collect a series of environmental performance indicators at the local level, referred to the 116 main (capital) Italian cities at the provincial (county) level (NUTS 3), of which 23 are the main urban centers of an (important) Italian ID (according to the Istat identification). The chapter offers a first attempt to map the environmental performance of local production systems and leaves room for future research on the topic. Finally, the second part of the book ends with the contribution of Natalia Faraoni, Tommaso Ferraresi, and Sara Turchetti, which focuses on a value chain approach to circular economy (CE) practices in the Tuscan fashion industry. More specifically, the authors try to find out to what extent the potential for environmental upgrading is channeled through the supply chain,

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suggesting that the CE perspective is intrinsically connected to the global manufacturing production and consumption. The study offers a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) using data stemming from a survey on 1247 Tuscan manufacturing firms about their initiatives of sustainability upgrading. Although in terms of fixed investments the fashion industry lags slightly behind, the analysis shows that firms are getting more conscious about the need for preserving resources and saving inputs. However, the paradigmatic shift towards CE requires more profound changes in their business model. Indeed, it confirms that the value chain is a relevant channel for environmental upgrading, albeit the activation of such a channel requires to have adopted specific environmental innovations. The third part of the book is dedicated to a micro-level approach, illustrating how to spur social entrepreneurship activities, which are based upon sustainable business models centered in the creation of a shared value. The creation of a shared value is a managerial concept introduced by Porter and Kramer (2006, 2011), which opens up major strategic opportunities to create competitive advantage, while driving the next wave of sustainable innovation, productivity, and economic growth. The topic is introduced by Fernando Alberti and Federica Belfanti, who provide insights into the successful configuration of innovative creating shared value (CSV) business strategies through the case of 21 Invest, an Italian firm operating in the private equity market with a CSV approach. Building on a comparative case study analysis of three of the most successful investments of 21 Invest in Italy, this study makes a step forward in the understanding of how firms translate shared value agendas into actions. The authors adopt the practical framework of Bockstette and Stamp (2011) that identifies “The Ten Building Blocks of CSV.” Despite the differences, cross-case analysis showed that it is possible to identify a pattern of best practices complementing those already identified in “The Ten Building Blocks” framework that companies can consider when designing and implementing a CSV strategy. Both theoretical and practical implications of the findings for successfully translating shared value agendas into action are discussed. Edoardo Bega, Luca Mongelli, Francesco Rullani, and Silvia Rita Sedita investigate the main features of social entrepreneurship (Janssen, Bacq, & Brouard, 2012), understanding the mechanisms through which Ashoka, the largest worldwide support organization for social innovators and social entrepreneurs, is able to create a fertile environment where to sustain the creation and development of these businesses. This chapter aims at exploring geographical differences in the structure and characteristics of social initiatives. After having analyzed the role of social entrepreneurship and social innovation in the Global South and in the Global North, the authors focus on the Ashoka network. Triangulating data from the Ashoka network and publications from academia (Yale and Columbia Universities) and international institutions (such as the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum), the authors compare the two global areas in terms of alignment between the most urgent needs of the countries therein and the actions of the local Ashoka fellows. Results inform policymakers, social and business actors on the importance of sustaining social innovation and social entrepre-

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neurship initiatives that align with the most pressing needs of the country, especially in economies that belong to the so-called Global South. Based on the assumption that capitalism needs to change direction, Silvia Rita Sedita and Alan Trovò offer an analysis of social entrepreneurship aimed at discovering the main determinants for social entrepreneurial activities in Italy, studying the possible relationship between the concentration of social enterprises and their determinants of action. In order to do that they adopt a configuration approach, considering how economic and social factors impact social entrepreneurship in Italian regions. A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is applied to a sample of 294 Italian social enterprises operating in a variety of sectors. The configurational analysis shows how it is possible that different regions follow heterogeneous trajectories in the development of social entrepreneurship, and some of the identified antecedents are present in all the configurations, such as the expenditure in research and development. The findings inform policymakers, institutions, and politicians on essential drivers for fostering social entrepreneurial activities in the Italian context. In the following chapter, Christian Richter Østergaard, Jacob Rubæk Holm, Eric Iversen, Torben Schubert, Asgeir Skålholt, and Markku Sotarauta argue that policy-making aiming to achieve environmentally sustainable transitions of the economy is in need of a solid empirical evidence base. Conventional measurement concepts used for example by the EU based on sector classifications deliver highly biased pictures. The authors propose measures related to green skills and human capital, validating their assumptions by an analysis of four Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Results show that various versions of indicators based on green skills help predicting whether firms introduce environmental innovations, and this finding is robust across the four countries. Upon applying their measurement concept at the regional level, they find that the different Nordic countries show rather distinct patterns in their geographical distributions of green skills, which may have implications for firms’ capabilities to introduce environmental innovations. The third part ends with the contribution of Alessandro Barbiero, Silvia Blasi, and Jan Marc Schwidtal, who move the discussion on the business model transformation of electricity supply, which leaves room for the emergence of end-user aggregators, as crucial element in the development of sustainable electricity business ecosystems (BE). The chapter attempts to answer the following research questions: what are the main changes in the electricity BE due to the energy transition? What is the role of the energy aggregators within the electricity BE? What are the main barriers that can hinder changes? The empirical evidence comes from a comparative cross-country case study analysis, which illustrates differences between four energy aggregators operating in four different European countries: United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Portugal. The analysis reveals different stages of development of energy aggregation depending mainly on the national context and on the legal and technical barriers. These barriers are specifically linked to peculiarities of electricity markets, particularly in relation to differences in retail, wholesale, and ancillary services markets.

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Overall, the book configures as an original contribution to the sustainable regional development research, and benefits from combining contributions from scholars operating in different fields: planning, economic geography, economics, and management. The multidisciplinary perspective is particularly helpful when addressing issues that involve a variety of actors belonging to different contexts. Moreover, the book offers a collection of a large and unique portfolio of empirical studies, which cover a wide range of institutional, political, and socio-economic environments. Some contributions focus on studies at the European level, others are country specific. Evidence from different geographical and institutional contexts provides direction for further analysis on how to shape the transition towards a sustainable regional development through social entrepreneurship and environmental technologies. The authors adopt frameworks of analysis that are typical of the respective scientific fields (e.g., case study analysis at the firm level; large database analysis at the regional level). However, many authors try to look beyond the boundaries of their discipline and address original research questions, to which they provide an answer with equally original empirical tools. Each contribution highlights the policy implications, and especially the implications in terms of support to regional development processes. Overall, the variety of approaches proposed is sustained by appropriate analytical tools, which deserve attention and further development from researchers on this area. The volume paves the way towards a systemic view of sustainable regional development, posing special emphasis on the creation of a shared value. Silvia Rita Sedita Silvia Blasi

References Bockstette, V., Stamp, M. (2011). Creating shared value: A how-to guide for the new corporate (R) evolution. http://hdl.handle.net/11520/20968 Boschma, R. (2015). Do spinoff dynamics or agglomeration externalities drive industry clustering? A reappraisal of Steven Klepper’s work. Industrial and Corporate Change, 24(4), 859–873. Clark, W. C., & Dickson, N. M. (2003). Sustainability science: The emerging research program. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(14), 8059–8061. Dietz, T., Börner, J., Förster, J. J., & Von Braun, J. (2018). Governance of the bioeconomy: A global comparative study of national bioeconomy strategies. Sustainability, 10(9), 3190. Elzen, B., Geels, F. W., & Green, K. (2004). System innovation and the transition to sustainability: Theory, evidence and policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Essletzbichler, J. (2012). Renewable energy technology and path creation: A multi-scalar approach to energy transition in the UK. European Planning Studies, 20(5), 791–816. European Commission. (2012). Report from the Commission from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the Implementation of the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation: Second Report-Annual Action Programmes for 2010 and 2011:{SWD (2012) 436 Final}. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Fröhlich, K., & Hassink, R. (2018). Regional resilience: A stretched concept? European Planning Studies, 26(9), 1763–1778.

Introduction

xxi Geels, F. W. (2005). Technological transitions and system innovations: A co-evolutionary and socio-technical analysis. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Geels, F. W. (2011). The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions: Responses to seven criticisms. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 1(1), 24–40. Geels, F. W., Hekkert, M. P., & Jacobsson, S. (2008). The dynamics of sustainable innovation journeys. England: Taylor & Francis. Hervas-Oliver, J.-L., Jackson, I., & Tomlinson, P. R. (2011). ‘May the ovens never grow cold’: Regional resilience and industrial policy in the North Staffordshire ceramics industrial district—with lessons from Sassoulo and Castellon. Policy Studies, 32(4), 377–395. Hodson, M., & Marvin, S. (2010). Can cities shape socio-technical transitions and how would we know if they were? Research Policy, 39(4), 477–485. Jacobsson, S., & Bergek, A. (2004). Transforming the energy sector: The evolution of technological systems in renewable energy technology. Industrial and Corporate Change, 13(5), 815–849. Janssen, F., Bacq, S., & Brouard, F. (2012). L’entrepreneuriat social: un thème pour la recherche passée, présente et future. Revue Internationale PME Économie et Gestion de La Petite et Moyenne Entreprise, 25(3–4), 17–44. Lawhon, M., & Murphy, J.  T. (2012). Socio-technical regimes and sustainability transitions: Insights from political ecology. Progress in Human Geography, 36(3), 354–378. Lemus-Aguilar, I., & Hidalgo, A. (2015). Innovation in consulting firms: An area to explore. In C. Pablo, M.-G. Elvira, & E.-S. Alejandro (Eds.), Enhancing synergies in a collaborative environment (pp. 335–342). New York, NY: Springer. Markard, J., Raven, R., & Truffer, B. (2012). Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research and its prospects. Research Policy, 41(6), 955–967. McCormick, K., & Kautto, N. (2013). The bioeconomy in Europe: An overview. Sustainability, 5(6), 2589–2608. Meijer, I., & Hekkert, M.  P. (2007). Managing uncertainties in the transition towards sustainability: Cases of emerging energy technologies in the Netherlands. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 9(3–4), 281–298. Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. (2011). MR (2011): Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review, 89(1/2), 62–77. Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. R. (2006). The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. Harvard Business Review, 84(12), 78–92. Robinson, G.  M. (2004). Geographies of agriculture: Globalisation, restructuring, and sustainability. London: Pearson Education. Rodríguez-Pose, A. (2018). The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it). Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 11(1), 189–209. Rohracher, H. (2001). Managing the technological transition to sustainable construction of buildings: A socio-technical perspective. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 13(1), 137–150. Smith, A., Stirling, A., & Berkhout, F. (2005). The governance of sustainable socio-­ technical transitions. Research Policy, 34(10), 1491–1510. Smith, A., Voß, J.-P., & Grin, J. (2010). Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges. Research Policy, 39(4), 435–448. Swart, R. J., Raskin, P., & Robinson, J. (2004). The problem of the future: Sustainability science and scenario analysis. Global Environmental Change, 14(2), 137–146. Walker, G., & Shove, E. (2007). Ambivalence, sustainability and the governance of socio-­ technical transitions. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 9(3–4), 213–225. Zechendorf, B. (2011). Regional biotechnology—The EU biocluster study. Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, 17(3), 209–217.

Part I Linking Sustainability, Innovation and Regional Development

Unravelling the Sustainable Resilient Region: Exploring Regional Resilience in Sustainable Transition Stefania Oliva and Luciana Lazzeretti

Introduction In recent decades, external shocks have become more common leading to an increase of analyses devoted to understanding the capacity of individuals, communities and regions to respond to negative events. In this scenario, the concept of resilience has rapidly started to spread among policymakers and academia, through different schemes and definitions, that have tried to study the topic and understand the ability of systems to cope with external shocks (Campanella, 2006; Martin, 2012; Martin & Sunley, 2015; Pendall, Foster, & Cowell, 2010; Sedita, De Noni, & Pilotti, 2017). In the last 10 years, this issue has become one of the major topics in different disciplines and a watchword for several policies and governments. The basic idea of these analyses was to try to understand why some communities and economies can positively respond and recover to external shocks (Adger, 2000). The understanding of such processes could contribute to identify the characteristics of those subjects and systems which better cope with disturbances. Studies of resilience, on the one side, describe it as an operational concept that implies a clear and accurate definition but, on the other side, S. Oliva (*) · L. Lazzeretti Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, Florence, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

they identify resilience as a normative notion that, for its nature, requires less strict definitions (Baggio, Brown, & Hellebrandt, 2015). They ascribe the popularity of the concept to its malleability because it can assume different meanings to different people and be interpreted in a broader sense across disciplines (Brand & Jax, 2007). Resilience is a “boundary object” able to adapt to several viewpoints maintaining an identity across them (Star & Griesemer, 1989). Recent contributions have applied the notion to study the responsiveness to external disturbances where resilience refers to the adaptive capacity of regions in overcoming adverse events, promoting adaptation and transformability in response to the challenges of a globalized scenario, such as economic transformation (Sunley, Martin, & Tyler, 2017), climate change and sustainability transition (Zhang & Li, 2018) and social inclusion (Sasaki, 2010). Many scholars have made efforts to develop a theoretical framework for the resilience of cities and regions (Leichenko, 2011; Martin & Sunley, 2015) addressing the topic with several issues devoted to narrow the boundaries of definitions and limit its fuzziness. To the question “what resilience is”, scholars have quickly added the necessity to specify “resilience to what”, “resilience of who” and “for whom” (Carpenter, Walker, Anderies, & Abel, 2001; Cretney, 2014; Cutter, 2016). Parallel to this rising interest, doubts have been related to the most suitable spatial scale to study resilience, to what ante-shock conditions

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. R. Sedita, S. Blasi (eds.), Rethinking Clusters, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61923-7_1

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could affect it and to the product of the resilient process itself (Boschma, 2015). Other scholars have wondered how to include institutional and societal aspects in the debate of resilience arguing that often the issue is not discussed enough despite the importance of policy and community in establishing a proactive response when shocks occur (Bristow & Healy, 2014). Finally, several studies have contributed to revise the concept of resilience. A share of these has systematized definitions trying to underline the high multidisciplinary (Modica & Reggiani, 2015). Others have been devoted to understanding resilience applied to specific fields, such as regional studies (Fröhlich & Hassink, 2018) and economics (Rose, 2004), or have related the notion to other popular concepts such as sustainability (Zhang & Li, 2018). Following this debate, the chapter wants to shed light on the relationship between resilience and sustainability in the field of regional studies. Through a critical analysis of definitions and criticisms that emerged in the last years’ literature, the chapter discusses how resilience may be integrated with the view of the sustainable transition of regions. The chapter is structured as follows. First, it offers a literature review of regional resilience research, conducted through a bibliometric analysis on Web of Science Core Collection (WOS). Second, it moves to identify the roots and evolution of resilience’s definitions. Third, it discusses the main criticisms on the approaches to resilience. Forth, it points out how an integration of the frameworks of resilience and sustainability may help researchers to overcome gaps and criticisms developing a comprehensive theory of regional resilience for sustainable development. Finally, the conclusions address the topic with suggestions for future researches.

 he Rising Discussion About T Regional Resilience Over the last few years, the notion of resilience has been widely introduced in management, geography and regional studies to describe the capacity of firms, environments and regions to successfully overcome external shocks.

S. Oliva and L. Lazzeretti

To identify the trend of the literature of resilience, the terms “regional resilience” or “resilient region” or “resilient regions” or “regional economic resilience” have been searched within the title, abstract and keywords of the contributions of the database Web of Science Core Collection of ISI Web of Science (WOS). The research allows us to trace and collect 299 publications in the period between 1993 and 2019 among scientific articles, book chapters, editorial materials and conference proceedings in the English language. Figure 1 represents the trend of scientific publications from 1993 to 2019. It shows a rapid increment starting from 2010, in parallel with the period immediately following the global financial crisis. This confirms the renewed interest of the topic concerning studies of the ability of regions and cities to cope with the economic crisis. Table 1 shows the first 10 most cited articles and the respective authors, years of publication, journal, title and number of citations. The most cited contribution is the seminal work of Simmie and Martin (2010) who discuss the notion of resilience with the theory of the adaptive cycle. Among the most cited contributions, a large part pertains to the study of economic geography and regional science while a residual part affords environmental and ecological issues, also related to sustainability, as the contribution of Walker et al. (2009). Analyzing the main sources of publication (Table 2), articles are distributed among a variety of scientific journals. Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society (21 articles) is the journal which counts the highest number of publications, followed by Sustainability and European Planning Studies (both with 17 articles).

 xploring the Origin and Evolution E of Resilience as a Multidisciplinary Concept  he Origins of the Concept T of Resilience One of the first problems of studying resilience has certainly been to establish the boundaries of its definition. Resilience, as a scientific con-

Unravelling the Sustainable Resilient Region: Exploring Regional Resilience in Sustainable Transition

5

60 53 48

50 41 40

41 34

30 23 20

17 14 10

10 1

1

2

2

3

3

6

0 1993 1999 2005 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Fig. 1  Total publications by year. Source: Web of Science, 2019 Table 1  Top 10 most cited articles on resilience Authors Simmie and Martin

Title The economic resilience of regions: towards an evolutionary approach

Martin

Regional economic resilience, hysteresis and recessionary shocks Modeling regional economic resilience to disasters: A computable general equilibrium analysis of water service disruptions Regional resilience: theoretical and empirical perspectives

Rose and Liao

Christopherson et al. Martin and Sunley Boschma Hassink

On the notion of regional economic resilience: conceptualization and explanation Towards an Evolutionary Perspective on Regional Resilience Regional resilience: a promising concept to explain differences in regional economic adaptability?

Bristow

Resilient regions: re-“place”ing regional competitiveness

Welsh

Resilience and responsibility: governing uncertainty in a complex world Resilience, Adaptability, and Transformability in the Goulburn-Broken Catchment, Australia

Walker et al.

Source: Authors’ elaboration from Web of Science, 2019

Journal Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society Journal of Economic Geography Journal of Regional Science Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society Journal of Economic Geography Regional Studies

Year 2010

Citations 464

2012

419

2005

303

2010

284

2015

235

2015

221

2010

206

Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society Geographical Journal

2010

163

2014

160

Ecology and Society

2009

156

S. Oliva and L. Lazzeretti

6 Table 2  Journals and books with more than five publications on resilience Source titles Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society Sustainability European Planning Studies Regional Studies Annals of Regional Science Papers in Regional Science Journal of Economic Geography Environment and Planning A—Economy and Space

Records 21 17 17 16 7 7 6 5

Source: Authors’ elaboration from Web of Science, 2019

cept, has origin in the physic of materials and ecology and has been recently debated in the socioeconomic sphere, particularly in regional sciences and urban studies. This literature is now quite extensive, but many studies consider the researches of Stanley Crawford Holling (1973, 1996, 2001) the origin of the modern theory of resilience (Folke et al., 2002; Walker, Holling, Carpenter, & Kinzig, 2004). Holling wanted to understand the influence of the diverse behaviours of natural ecosystems in their resources’ management classifying such behaviours according to proprieties of stability and resilience. His studies given rise to incremental literature of the topic (Perrings, 2006; Gunderson & Holling, 2002). This strand of the literature identified two different definitions of resilience, namely “engineering resilience” and “ecological resilience”. Engineering resilience finds its root in physics and engineering studies (Gordon, 1978; Pimm, 1984). In engineering, resilience is the ability of a structure to resist a sudden shock and to not crack. The term has been used in the field of materials science and it has been defined as a property of a material. It expresses the extent to which a material subjected to external stress can return to its initial shape when the external pressure is no longer applied. Engineering resilience concerns the possibility for the system to return to an existing equilibrium after the occurrence of a shock and it can be measured by the speed required to go back to this pre-shock equilibrium (Pimm, 1991).

Ecological resilience, indeed, addresses the idea to move on new equilibria and it is measured by the amount of the shock absorbed by the system. Thus, ecological resilience is conceived as the magnitude of disturbance that can be tolerated before a system moves into a different state and set of controls (Holling, 1973, 1996). It has three main properties: (a) the amount of change that systems can sustain remaining in the same function and structure; (b) the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization; (c) the degree which measures the ability of the system to learn and adapt (Carpenter et al., 2001). A breakthrough in studying resilience came from the theory of socio-ecological systems (SESs): systems including both human and biophysical subsystems (Gallopín, 1991). Theorizing resilience in SESs constituted the starting point for the creation of the “resilient thinking” approach (Folke, 2006; Walker & Salt, 2006), which moved the concept of resilience from being considered as a simple feature of the system to a more complex and systemic process. A part of scholars of SESs founded in 1999, the Resilience Alliance, an international and multidisciplinary network of resilience scholars guided by Holling to advance studies and applications of the concepts of resilience, adaptive capacity and transformation of societies and ecosystems to cope with change and support human wellbeing. Resilient thinking aims at understanding the world and its constant change. According to SESs theory, shocks can be analysed through four variables: robustness, resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity (Gallopín, 2006; Young et al., 2006). Such variables are strongly connected but their relationship is highly controversial. While robustness is the ability of a system to resist disturbances without changing structure or dynamics, resilience is the ability to compete ­ with external disturbances. Vulnerability, instead, occurs when robustness and resilience are not able to allow the survival of the system without a structural change. Thus, resilience is related to vulnerability by the adaptive capacity that is the ability of SESs both to cope with external shocks and to improve functions and structure of the system. In the field of SESs resilience is defined as:

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Table 3  Evolution of the notion of resilience in the study of engineering, ecological and socioecological systems Author Gordon (1978)

Context Physics

Pimm (1984)

Engineering

Holling (2001)

Ecological systems Ecological systems

Gunderson and Holling (2002)

Definition The resilience of a material is the quality of being able to store strain energy and deflect elastically under a load without breaking or being deformed The speed with which a system returns to its original state following a perturbation The resilience of the system, a measure of its vulnerability to unexpected or unpredictable shocks The magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed before the system changes its structure by changing the variables and processes that control behaviour

Equilibrium Return to a previous equilibrium Return to a previous equilibrium Possibilities for multiple equilibria Possibilities for multiple equilibria

Source: Authors’ elaboration “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as understanding the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks” (Walker et al., 2004, p. 1).

Table 3 summaries the founders’ contributions to the notion of resilience.

 he Evolutionary Approaches T to Economic Resilience Over the last few years, scholars have recognized and consequently studied resilience as an important factor of growth or decline of places and as a fundamental approach to understanding the relationships between regional development and the path of transformation. This emerging scenario caused doubts about the usefulness of the concept of resilience to explain the phenomena of recovery from shocks but also trajectories of urban and regional change. Engineering and ecological resilience lack of any references to the dynamism of local systems (Dawley, Pike, & Tomaney, 2010). On the one hand, the engineering approach that emphasizes the return to a preexisting equilibrium does not recognize a potential evolution of systems. It is comparable to the neoclassical economics viewpoint characterized by an optimal equilibrium, rationality of economic agents and perfect function of market mechanisms. On the other hand, despite ecological resilience identifies the possibility of multiple equilibria, it compares the evolution of systems to the succession of several states of equilibria.

Resilience cannot be considered as a dichotomous concept that involves the restoration of states of existing equilibria or the generation of a new. It is a complex process that can lead to a mix of multiple states of change and continuity. Such reflections lead scholars to theorize a new definition of resilience trying to address the theoretical problems of engineering and ecological definitions. Following an evolutionary perspective, a goal is studying resilience in relation to the creation of new trajectories and a key element is to understand the adaptive capacity of the system as a response to pressures. This is the ability of labour forces, technology, institutions, communities and policies to adapt to a change deriving from external pressures. A convincing theory of resilience requires to explain how adaptive capacity develops in time and this implies a shifting of the focus from the characteristics of a resilient economy to how these features adapt over time. The purpose is to investigate the trajectories of change rather than the stability factors and, at the same time, to ­identify the influence of structure, organization and behaviours of the economic systems in creating resilience (Martin & Sunley, 2015). Simmie and Martin (2010) argue that resilience involves: “the ability of the region’s industrial, technological, labour force and institutional structures to adapt to the changing competitive, technological and market pressures and opportunities that confront its firms and workforce” (p. 30).

S. Oliva and L. Lazzeretti

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According to this vision, resilience refers to the adaptive capacity of the system and is related to the ability of the system to reorganize and evolve to minimize the impact of disturbances. This new “adaptive resilience” involves the possibility of a structural adjustment in response to shocks and has been defined as “evolutionary resilience”. In a later work, Martin (2012) defines adaptive resilience as: “the capacity of a regional economy to reconfigure, that is adapt, its structure (firms, industries, technologies and institutions) so as to maintain an acceptable growth path in output, employment and wealth over time” (p. 10).

Thus, such adaptive capacity may refer to processes of adaptation and adaptability (Grabher, 1993). The first involves the recombination of assets historically accumulated in a region to foster the transformation of its economic base in response to the shock. The second refers to the ability of a region to introduce new resources in the aftermath of a shock. Both concepts can explain resilience and how new trajectories have been developed over time (Pike, Dawley, & Tomaney, 2010). Simmie (2017) associates adaptation and adaptability to the concept of replication and re-invention of urban and regional economies. Replication pertains to the capacity of reproducing existing components of the economic scenario replacing existing declining industries with a modern version. Re-invention involves the ability to continually reinvent new firms acquiring new knowledge from external sources, such as national and global networks. The attitude to promote the first or the second direction can influence the response of systems to exogenous shocks. Adaptive resilience has been studied through several different evolutive approaches. A successful idea has its roots in Generalized Darwinism and recognizes diversity and variety as successful elements for the resilience of places. As underlined by Martin (2012) the diversity of the region’s economic structure may be a crucial factor in influencing responsiveness to external shocks. This is also connected to the debate concerning the role of specialization and diversification in affecting resilience. Despite literature

recognize the potential role of the related variety of the industrial structure in positively influencing the resilience of a local production system (Sedita et al., 2017), other studies suggest that a regional response to a crisis is not always positively associated with relatedness but may involve unrelated diversification strategies (Lazzeretti, Oliva, & Innocenti, 2019). This suggests the important connection existing between the concept of adaptive resilience and the most suitable form of industrial structure for promoting structural change and regional transformation.

Criticisms of the Notion of Resilience Alongside the increasing enthusiasm and confidence in the possibility of alternative resilient development, a general criticism started to take hold. Even though in many fields the ecological definition has been preferred to the engineering one, the lack of a unique meaning of resilience and its application to several disciplines exposes the notion to a series of criticisms due to the absence of a clear conceptual determination and a drop in the theoretical validity of the concept (Martin & Sunley, 2015). In the last few years, the notion underwent a sudden sprawl of definitions confusing more than clarifying the conceptual framework of resilience leading to define it as a “fuzzy” concept. Other criticisms come from the ontological nature of resilience that pertains to ecology and socio-ecology, evolutionary biology, economics and psychology (Simmie, 2017). The ecological nature of resilience makes difficult to apply the resilience concept to economic and social systems because many are the differences in structure and configurations that characterize socioeconomic organizations. While ecological systems lack human action and intelligence, this is crucial to respond to shocks in social systems. The different ways in which policymakers respond to crises influence decisively the resilience of economic systems (Martin, 2012). Urban economies have a social component able to learn and change (Simmie & Martin, 2010).

Unravelling the Sustainable Resilient Region: Exploring Regional Resilience in Sustainable Transition

The ecological nature of resilience ignores the role of institutions, policies and cultural and social factors in contributing to resilience (Swanstrom, 2008). The human component can affect the trajectories of development of the region. This aspect makes adaptation of regions unpredictable and not necessarily subject to the stages theorized by models as adaptive cycles. Knowledge is a key component of economic development. Thus, a valid theory in the explanation of the evolution of the system should consider both human actions and continuing learning capacity. Finally, while ecological systems are characterized by long periods of continuing stability, regional and urban economies are unsettled and often affected by the occurrence of external shocks which changed local circumstances. Some of the criticisms refer to the “neoliberal” attitude of resilience (MacKinnon & Derickson, 2013) which involves the reaching of a resilient development as a top-down strategy and increases competition between territories. The concept of resilience has quickly infiltrated many areas of policy decision. Governments define top-down strategies of resilience applying the same recipe to treat the problems of a globalized world, without any interest for unique localisms. Moreover, it seems to emphasize the search for continued growth and competitive advantages as the solution to the problems of the contemporary economic scenario. Finally, despite positive reactions to shocks have been widely discussed in the literature, poor attention is paid on those cases that can be defined as “unresilient spaces”, underling that a process of “arrested dialectic” contribute to stasis in the academic debate of resilience (Cooke, 2017). Lower interest is in analysing cases of un-growth and unchanged regions or places that have lived a continuous unstopped decline after the occurrence of a shock. However, to understand the reasons which made these places “unresilient” is as well important as understanding the remarkable resilience of successful cases. Such a vision can be connected with the general positive attitude in discussing the topic of resilience:

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“thus academia is, not for the first time, trapped by ‘resilience’ in its own addiction to optimism rather than a more balanced realism” (Cooke, 2017, p. 4).

 he Open Debate of Resilient T Regions: The Relationship with Sustainability  efining Sustainability Across D Disciplines: An Overview The criticisms identified in the previous section underline the necessity to rethink the notion of resilience. A concept that can be useful to rediscuss regional resilience is the concept of sustainability. A framework who connects both approaches may be useful to analyse the future challenges of regional development. Even the research of Holling and the team of Resilience Alliance (Ludwig, Walker, & Holling, 1997) had combined the concepts of resilience and sustainability and subsequent debates enlarged the vision of sustainability discussing the “Holling sustainability” versus the economic perspective (Harris, 2003). The impossibility of an infinite economic growth was announced in 1972 by the report of the Club of Rome “The limits to Growth”, which analysed the causes and consequences of the accelerated growth characterizing the modern world. According to their investigation, the Club of Rome scholars concluded that, with the current rates of population growth, industrialization and pollution, the limits to the growth of our modern economies would have been reached within the next 100 years (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens, 1972). This would be due to the limits to resources’ availability and the e­ xcessive weight of the anthropogenic impact on our ecosystem. In 1987, the concept of sustainable development was introduced by the World Environment and Development Commission (WCED). The Brundtland Report called for human ability: “to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 16).

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Since the publication of this report, the idea of sustainable development has been adopted increasingly as a guiding principle in the environmental discourse, however, with different interpretations. Further definitions have broadened the concept without changing the infra and intergenerational character of the original definition. It is the idea of continuity in the future that emphasizes the link between sustainability of development and reduction of the stock of resources. Mebratu (1998) groups the definitions of sustainability and sustainable development into three macro groups. The institutional version considers the definitions promoted by international organizations that deal globally with environmental problems. The ideological version refers to the definitions that have a common root with other social movements, such as feminism, Marxism, etc. Finally, the academic version collects the definitions that have developed independently within scientific disciplines, focusing in particular on studies of sustainability in economics, ecology and sociology. Within this latest macro-group, the concept of sustainable development has developed through different definitions within specific branches of literature. In the field of economics and management studies (Daly, 1990; Gladwin et  al., 1995), the definition of sustainable development has three crucial elements that deal with the social, environmental and ecological dimensions of the concept. Despite the definitions have increased, such dimensions have remained crucial for a large part of the literature of sustainability. Even if the first studies of sustainability define each component—economic, social and environmental—distinctly (Goodland, 1995), recent studies recognize an overlapping among these three dimensions. They underline the importance of a holistic view to organize the actions required for a global approach to sustainability. Opposite to the views of weak sustainability (Neumayer, 1999), according to which built capital can replace or substitute natural resources, the nested sustainable development sees the economy dependent on society and both dependent on the environment (Giddings, Hopwood, & O’brien, 2002). This is very well expressed by the vision of cities and regions as

S. Oliva and L. Lazzeretti

complex adaptive systems where a shock may affect different levels of the system that are characterized by cross-scale connections. In the field of regional science and economic geography, literature over the concept of sustainability has evolved quickly. This emergent and flourishing field relates sustainability to the idea of technological transition where social and technical dimensions coevolve in a multilevel perspective (Shove & Walker, 2007). According to this vision, sustainable transitions are defined as a shift in sociotechnical configurations that involves not only technologies but markets, policies and institutions (Coenen, Benneworth, & Truffer, 2012). Moreover, transitions in technologies have a multilevel perspective where change and stability coexist. At micro-level, change and radical innovations occur in niches while, at meso-level, technological regimes guide stability through incremental improvements of existing trajectories. The macro-level is represented by the sociotechnical landscape where the actors interact (Geels, 2002). Part of the literature recognizes an important role to scholars in economic geography to investigating sustainable transitions in regions focusing on how specific characteristics of places can influence the pathways to sustainability. However, these studies have been poorly generalized. Furthermore, it has not yet been defined specifically what the regime dynamics favour or inhibit transactions (Hansen & Coenen, 2015).

 re Resilience and Sustainability A Interrelated? Based on the discussion conducted so far, we want to understand how the above-mentioned debate on sustainability may be integrated into the frameworks of resilience for developing a more comprehensive theory of regional resilience for sustainable development. The economic field, in studying sustainable development, has developed different definitions in different branches. A crucial difference concerns the notion of weak and nested sustainability, underlined in the previous paragraph. Such

Unravelling the Sustainable Resilient Region: Exploring Regional Resilience in Sustainable Transition

distinction may be useful for enlarging the debate concerning resilience and may help to discuss some unsolved problems. Adopting a vision similar to that of nested sustainability may help resilience to overcome a part of the criticisms to who see the definition as too narrowed to its ecological versus economic dimension. Indeed, regional studies of resilience are generally extremely focused on a single dimension of resilience. In particular, the empirical studies concerning the adaptive resilience of regions mostly refer to economic crises and recessionary shocks. These studies use employment or GDP (Cuadrado-­ Roura, Martin, & Rodríguez-Pose, 2016) to measure the resilience of regions while less attention is paid to social, environmental and embedded resources. However, natural shocks can have strict repercussions on economic and social dimensions. When a shock occurs, economically vulnerable and marginal communities may be less responsive (Leichenko, 2011). What should count for policymakers is to integrate actions of hazard mitigation with policies for economic development and reduction of inequality. Moreover, concerning the natural environment, the effects and the evolutionary dynamics of regional economic resilience in the face of natural shocks are still an under-researched topic (Oliva & Lazzeretti, 2017). This seems unrealistic to the light of the increasing number of disasters that affect cities and regions over the last few years. Including the environmental sphere in the investigation of economic resilience can lead to opportunities for new and more resilient forms of regional economic development (Hudson, 2010). Second, the multilevel perspective adopted in investigating sustainable transitions in regional studies and economic geography may help adaptive resilience framework to describe resilience as a process more than a characteristic of places. According to the framework of adaptive resilience, resilience may help to understand the evolution of the system clarifying the attitude of some regions to renew, reorganize and develop a sustainable future in the long term (Lazzeretti & Cooke, 2015). The multilevel perspective suggests that a transition toward a more sustainable regime involves both technological and institu-

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tional coevolution and happens at different levels. This perspective applied to the study of resilience may help to understand different phases of the response to external shocks, such as short-term recovery and long-term reorganization and renewal of regions (Martin, 2012). Moreover, within this framework, multilevel perspective and coevolution may lead toward a deep understanding on how different regional levels interact to respond to the shock and to clearly distinguish how determinants of resilience—among which innovative capacity, entrepreneurial activity, institutional dimension or industrial structure—influence ability of regions to overcome shock through change and transformation. In particular, if the final goal of regional resilience is structural change (Martin & Sunley, 2015), a focus on the local technological and industrial structure may explain the formation of niches and new industries based on emergent and sustainable technologies. This is a common and important element of both resilience and a transition toward a more sustainable regime. On the one side, regional resilience framework discusses the role of industrial structure and the need for coexistence between both adaptation or adaptability of regions to shocks (Hu & Hassink, 2017). This suggests that structural change is a path-dependent process where the role of the existing industrial structure may be crucial in the development of new specializations and technologies through a branching process. On the other side, studies of sustainable transitions of regions emphasize the place-dependence of such processes and should investigate the role of existing industrial and technological patterns to explain how niches and innovations emerge (Hansen & Coenen, 2015). However, also resilience may add something new to the concept of sustainability. In the framework of sustainable development, a goal for policymakers has been to build fail-safe regions, promote technological efficiency and ensure the sustainable transition. Resilience may introduce a new perspective based on the idea of adaptability to change, recognizing the constant pressures that affect regional development. According to this vision, resilience is one of the steps of the sustain-

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ability of places and policymakers can benefit from models based on resilience to achieve goals related to sustainability (Zhao, Chapman, Randal, & Howden-Chapman, 2013). It has been considered as the fourth dimension of sustainability, following economic, social and environmental dimensions (Ahern, 2013). Going a step forward, theory should move to the perspective of resilient and sustainable development adopting the vision of regions as complex systems, continually subject to change and uncertainty. Research of resilience and sustainability are for sure interconnected, but they have a specific difference. While sustainability involves a certain degree of stability, promoting the preservation of resources to guarantee their use for future generations, resilience has more to do with the ability to transform, change and adapt. Finally, sharing these two domains may contribute to overcoming research gaps existing in the literature of resilience. First, despite determinants of regional resilience have largely been theorized, few studies have tried to operationalize the factor influencing responsiveness of regions (Holm & Østergaard, 2015). It is not still clear what behaviours and attributes of systems can contribute to shaping resilience. Modica and Reggiani (2015) identify six main domains used in literature to evaluate resilience. These range from some factors including an individual dimension—socioeconomic and financial characteristics of individuals—, internal aspects of the system—institutional capacity, infrastructures and community—and other related to technological innovations and the

Fig. 2 Framing resilience in sustainable development. Source: Authors’ elaboration

S. Oliva and L. Lazzeretti

natural environment. Martin and Sunley (2015) recognize a fundamental role in agency and decision-making processes to increase the ability of economic systems to resist and recover from shocks. Bristow and Healy (2014) emphasize the role of policies in proactively responding to a crisis. A share of studies of resilience in social sciences focalizes on the role of communities to foster resilience (Yamamura, 2010). The view of sustainable development may contribute to adding a social dimension to resilience, investigating the role of actors and communities in affecting regional resilience. However, it may also emphasize how agency and behaviours can contribute to the sustainable transition of regions. Communities’ resilience may become an important indicator of sustainability considering that social, ecological and economic resilience are related (Adger, 2000; Magis, 2010). Following this approach, it is important to note that environmental changes have an impact on resource-dependent communities as well as economic transformations, in the form of technological transitions, which may affect natural resources management. Figure 2 proposes an integration of the framework of resilience and sustainability. Considering sustainable development as a guiding principle for the policies and strategies of economic and institutional actors, integration of the vision of adaptive resilience, understood as the ability to overcome shocks and promote change, and the sustainable transition in a multilevel perspective can lead to a structural change involving agents, technologies and institutions of regions.

Unravelling the Sustainable Resilient Region: Exploring Regional Resilience in Sustainable Transition

Conclusions The discussion so far conducted wanted to revise the main topics related to regional resilience and combine it with the framework of sustainable development. Far from being considered exhaustive, the analysis focused on the main theoretical contributions in the study of the resilience of regions. The analysis has tried to intercept the connections between the different views of resilience and highlighted criticisms. Finally, a proposal to integrate the resilience approach with that of sustainability has been discussed to overcome the research gaps identified in the literature. The discussion has tried to highlight the multiplicity of aspects of resilience suggesting that its ontological background, both ecological and evolutive, competes to the strength and weakness of resilience. On the one side, as criticisms suggest, these can lead to consider resilience as a human disconnected and top-down strategy. On the other side, resilience can help researchers in understanding perturbations in modern economies. This scenario involves several forms of shocks—environmental disasters, economic fluctuation, social crisis and technological changes— well suited in the socio-economic context. An integration with sustainability literature may increase the power of resilience as a tool for studying processes of change and transition in regional and local economies. Following a sustainable approach, economic resilience may benefit from a vision related to the community, individuals and institutions that are increasingly emerging as important determinants of resilience (Adger, 2000). What emerges from the theoretical analysis is the power of the multidisciplinarity of resilience and sustainability. This can favour dialogue between different disciplines, enlarge the domain of application and benefit from multiple and diverse perspectives. Some useful insights come from environmental studies at the regional and urban level. Studying resilience in the field of sustainable transition can contribute to the emergence of the interconnections of ecosystems, society and economic activities. This put the relationship

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between environmental, social and economic levels in a double-effect process. Thus, the resilience of ecosystems depends on human actions, but it also represents a solution for economic shocks. This is clear when studying processes of climate change and natural disasters, where manmade disasters reduced the potential for economic recovery due to fewer possibilities of using local resources. In this context, a central role is played by institutions, collective actions and governments to build a conscious social resilience able to minimize the impact of natural hazards and foster social reorganization. This vision is well synthesized in the concept of “strong sustainability” who challenges the possibility of substitution of different types of capital, such as environmental, economic and social capital. This point requires future research in the domain of regional development, particularly in the emerging literature of sustainable transitions, where solutions are highly dependent on technology, but they should not leave out resources’ management, social determinants and the unpredictability of the economic scenario. Moreover, an integration between the framework of resilience and sustainability sheds light on some topics that regional policymakers should take into account in promoting sustainable and resilient development of regions. First, the place-based approach of sustainable transition pointed out the necessity to rethink the role of local resources in shaping policies toward sustainability and resilience. This is also recalled by the critics of resilience who contest its neoliberal attitude and suggest for giving more importance to the endowment of environmental, economic and cultural resources embedded in regions. An approach toward this direction should be useful also in identifying weaknesses of the regional context and explain why some places are more able to transform than others. This reflection leads toward a second point. Regional policymakers should also give more emphasis to the role of the existing specializations, agglomerations of know-how and capabilities in understanding how this may delineate new economic and technological trajectories in the view of sustainability. In this context, what is

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important is to understand what elements of the existing economic structure may constitute a competitive advantage for the sustainable development of regions. Finally, prediction models have resulted in being unable to anticipate both economic and environmental shocks. It follows that the priority of policymakers should be to provide new tools to enhance the capacity of individuals, firms and institutions to be less sensitive to shocks. In this scenario, policymakers should be able to define efficient mitigation strategies that make regions less vulnerable to shocks. It follows that introducing the vision of sustainability also into risk planning policies can lead to consider aspects such as the irreproducibility of natural resources, the need for an energy transaction or the challenges of climate change. These aspects are often underestimated in favour of emergency and recovery management policies that could be avoided by implementing a continuous and targeted prevention policy. Acknowledgements This work benefits of a research period at the Urban Research Plaza, at Osaka City University, Japan and at the Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK to deep the topic of regional and urban resilience.

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Green Invention as Leverage for Economic Growth in Locally Collaborative European Regions Ivan De Noni, Andrea Ganzaroli, and Luigi Orsi

Introduction There is increasing pressure to find feasible and sustainable solutions to the environmental problem. The European Union has designed a specific policy that works at different geographical levels and integrates different policy instruments aiming at transforming Europe in the geographic area with the highest environmental standards in the world by 2050. Thus, regions are increasingly called to enact a transformative process involving both people and firms. In relation to this, on the one hand, regions need to stimulate a sensibilisation process able to change people’s daily behaviours, beliefs and culture. On the other, they should also encourage and support firms to adopt more sustainable environment-related technologies (env-techs) in their production processes to reduce their environmental effect and face the challenge of a circular economy. Thus, according to the regional literature, environmental innovation is currently considered one of the key drivers of sustainable development and growth. This

I. De Noni (*) Department of Economics and Management, University of Padua, Padua, Italy e-mail: [email protected] A. Ganzaroli · L. Orsi Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

chapter focusses on the idea that, by supporting a more creative process oriented to developing new environmental technologies, regions may facilitate a local application of these inventions within the industrial portfolio of the region and consequently strengthen the regional competitiveness and growth. In addition, the regional capacity to boost green collaboration within and beyond the region by increasing the synergies across universities, firms, suppliers, customers and institutions should enhance the production of new green technologies and solutions. In fact, green collaboration is expected to support a more effective and faster production and application of green innovations by accelerating the move to a more efficient and sustainable regional ecosystem and positively affecting regional development and growth. The objective of this chapter is to investigate whether and to what extent green invention and green collaboration strengthen the competitiveness of regions and the significance of spatial proximity as a distinctive source of competitive advantage. To achieve this objective, we apply panel regressions with time and regional effects using generalised estimating equations on an 11-year dataset of 232 European regions. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) RegPat database is used for measuring env-tech and collaborative networks. Cambridge Econometrics data are used to operationalise our dependent variable—regional competitiveness in terms of industry gross value-­

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. R. Sedita, S. Blasi (eds.), Rethinking Clusters, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61923-7_2

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added (GVA) growth—and data from Eurostat are further collected to define the control variables that are more widely assumed by the literature on innovation. Our results confirm that environmental innovation performance contributes to strengthening the competitiveness of regions, while collaboration for environmental-related innovation does not seem to be significant per se. Nevertheless, disentangling the latter, we observe the conflicting findings of intraregional and interregional collaboration. While the first positively contributes to regional development and growth, the second has negative effects. As we shall see, these results have significant implications in terms of policymaking. First, they highlight that much of the externalities generated by environmental innovation are internalised at the regional level. Spatial and social proximity strengthen innovation and regional growth by improving the efficiency of people and firms in sharing valuable knowledge through collaboration and mutual trust (De Noni, Ganzaroli, & Orsi, 2017; Sun & Cao, 2015). Second, they suggest that environmental innovation may widen the competitive gap between ‘core’ regions and those that are lagging behind (De Noni, Orsi, & Belussi, 2018). The structure of the chapter is as follows: In the next section, we review the literature and build up our main theoretical arguments. This section ends with our main hypotheses. Then, we discuss the methodology and present our results. The final section discusses the main results and their relative implications, as well as delineating some limitations and directions for further research.

 ackground Literature and Theory B Building Exploring the extent to which environmental innovation may strengthen the competitive advantage of regions requires developing a better understanding of what environmental innovation means and how the peculiarities characterising this form of innovation interact with the factors shaping regional competitiveness. The terms

I. De Noni et al.

environmental, green, sustainable and eco-­ innovation are used to characterise products, services or processes that have the effect of reducing or avoiding environmental harms (Beise and Rennings, 2005; De Marchi, 2012; Kemp, 2010; Liquete et al., 2015; Liu, Vedlitz, & Shi, 2014). Therefore, it is the effect and not the content that defines innovation as environmental. Even if there are no substantial differences between innovation and ‘green’ innovation, if not for the effect, the literature has already highlighted a number of specificities that make environmental innovation unique compared with other forms of innovation worth studying separately. It is well known that environmental innovation is subjected to the double externality problem (Ghisetti & Rennings, 2014; Jaffe, Newell, & Stavins, 2005; Rennings, 2000). First, social costs associated with environmental issues exceed private costs, and second, knowledge required for the development of green technologies is characterised by non-excludability (Hall & Helmers, 2013). In other words, externalities of environmental innovation create social value, which can be shared but not entirely appropriated by the innovator. Therefore, the incentives for firms to invest in environmental innovation are even weaker, while the importance of policy intervention and collaboration is even stronger. Second, environmental innovations are inclined to be more worthy and scalable because of the larger combinatorial potential of green technologies, in view of their wider scope of application, as compared to other technologies. In this light, they are often pathbreaking and high-impact innovations (Coenen, Moodysson, & Martin, 2015; Haščič & Migotto, 2015). Therefore, they have a high added value in terms of economic returns. Although green technologies are widely recognised to produce positive externalities for both businesses and the environment, some negative issues should at least be recalled. Limitations associated with green technologies include high development and implementation costs (e.g. the complexity of the restructuring of bulky energy and transport infrastructure), high time consumption, land use, lack of information and regulation,

Green Invention as Leverage for Economic Growth in Locally Collaborative European Regions

lack of educational programmes for increasing environmental awareness, shortage of skilled researchers and managers, unpredictable performance impacts (some alternative fuels have been shown not to reduce toxic emissions; savings generated by going green are often less than expected) and negative environmental externalities (renewable energy requires storage in batteries, which are polluting and difficult to dispose of). To summarise, its specificities and multidisciplinary nature, as well as its positive effects on firms and society, make green invention able to specifically affect the competitiveness of regions and worth in-depth investigation to an even greater extent than other types of invention.

 reen Invention and Regional G Competitiveness A recent work by Todtling et  al. (2019, p.  2) invokes ‘the notion of green regional development to encompass both the production of green solutions and their application to solve concrete environmental challenges’. In so doing, the authors distinguish two dimensions of green regional development—the production (supply) side and the application (demand) side of new env-tech and solutions. Both production and application of green technologies by firms embedded in a region can support regional development and growth. Application is expected to support both firms’ productivity and environmental performance. Production enables firms to directly apply and adopt their developed solutions or sell them in the local and global markets. In this framework, although regions may import green technologies and solutions developed in other regions or countries, green invention intensity may be a critical driver of regional competitiveness. There are several reasons why this could be the case. The development of new green technologies and solutions is expected to produce twofold benefits in terms of the productivity and efficiency of firms, as well as solutions to environmental problems. In this framework, the productivity of firms’ benefits by developing and implementing green innovations because in

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doing so, firms can save raw materials, improve waste disposal, limit polluting emissions and reduce energy consumption. The attempt to identify and introduce new green solutions empowers firms to improve their products and production processes to make them more sustainable. The introduction of green solutions can produce advantages for both firm and supply value chains, driving a transformation process that focusses on the concept of a circular economy. Hottenrott, Rexhäuser, and Veugelers (2016) argue that the positive linkage between green technology adoption and productivity growth relies on firms’ capacity to adapt their organisational structures. Firms’ ability to design new green technologies and processes directly reflect waste and consumption costs reduction. However, green innovation further leads to new markets, as well as internationalisation and diversification opportunities because of the multidisciplinary nature and scalability of green technologies and solutions. The improvement of environmental performance also enhances the social firm’s reputation. Environmental responsibility increases the chance for access to greater financial resources and incentives, the capacity to attract human capital to invest in and local and global market opportunities, as well as collaboration and networking opportunities with customers, suppliers and institutions. The social impact of green innovation positively affects the relationship with stakeholders. The positive effects of social responsibility on the finance and economic performance of firms have been widely argued in the literature. Given the factors contributing the most regional competitiveness and those required to create environmental innovation, we expect that the development of environmental innovation at the regional level may further strengthen the capacity of regions to leverage those resources with positive effects for their competitiveness (Pujari, 2006). Studies have already focussed on the relationship between green innovation and environmental productivity (measured as value added [VA] per unit of emissions) (Cainelli, Mazzanti, & Zoboli, 2013; Ghisetti & Quatraro, 2017). Dettori, Marrocu, and Paci (2012) and Paci and

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Marrocu (2013) have shown the positive effects of overall innovation on regional productivity growth. However, few studies have looked at the effect of green innovation on regional performance in terms of productivity growth. All the arguments outlined above drive the point that green invention can support regional development and growth. Therefore, the following hypothesis should hold: H1: The more a region produces green invention, the greater its competitive advantage.

 reen Collaboration and Regional G Competitiveness The literature on the topic has widely argued the complex and multidisciplinary nature of environmental innovation (Andersen, 1999, 2002; Cainelli, De Marchi, & Grandinetti, 2015; De Marchi, 2012; Andersen and Foxon, 2009; Roscoe et al., 2016). On the one hand, environmental innovation is complex since it requires a combination of highly heterogeneous competences (Zeppini & van den Bergh, 2011). A typical example is the electric car. Reducing the environmental impact of cars through the introduction of the electric car is not sufficient to develop small and efficient batteries; it is also necessary to organise a widespread and efficient recharging infrastructure and adopt a clean method of energy production. On the other hand, environmental innovation is multidisciplinary since the large scope of green technologies is common to a wide range of basic, applied and engineering fields and related sectors. For instance, the development of smart grids needs to integrate competence related to the fields of ICT, electronic and mechanical engineering, statistics and physics. Because of the complex and multidisciplinary nature of green innovation, it is difficult for firms to have sufficient knowledge of all these potential technologies in house. Firms need to expand beyond firm boundaries by involving external partners in their green research and innovation activities. The collaborative dimension of knowl-

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edge production has been shown to be specifically important in the case of highly complex and multidisciplinary knowledge (Dornbusch & Neuhäusler, 2015). These arguments sustain the fact that green inventions require, on the one hand, intensive exchanges of scientific and technical knowledge and expertise, as well as complementary assets from various sectors and/or disciplines, and on the other, complex interactions among various complementary users from firms, universities and specialised research entities and organisations, both globally and domestically (Lubango, 2020). Although few studies have examined the role of green technologies in the formation of collaboration networks and their evolution, this tendency has recently increased. From this perspective, Orsatti, Quatraro, and Pezzoni (2020) argue that team ‘recombinant creation’ capabilities have a positive effect on the probability of generating green technologies. Todtling, Trippl and Frangenheim (2019) further explore the extent to which collaboration enables local firms to overcome the local barriers that affect the development of new green technologies and solutions, such as lock-in assets in old economic activities, institutional inertia, resistance from dominant players in industry and thinness of regional innovation systems. Zeppini and van den Bergh (2011) investigate the collaboration between green technological domains and non-­ green ones. The authors outline a possible role of collaboration in supporting the generation of new environment-related solutions through hybridisation. In addition, Quatraro and Scandura (2019) discuss the value of collaboration with universities to promote green innovation. From their perspective, academic inventors can better support a recombination process across different and not necessarily related technological domains (Quatraro & Scandura, 2019). In contrast, green inter-organisational collaboration is also stimulated in response to stringent environmental regulation (Orsatti et  al., 2020), supply- and demand-oriented policies and the availability of public funding (Fabrizi, Guarini, & Meliciani, 2018). Melander (2017) underlines the role of supply chain collaboration. She claims that green

Green Invention as Leverage for Economic Growth in Locally Collaborative European Regions

innovations depend extensively on collaborating with customers and suppliers. Finally, Santoalha and Boschma (2019) reveal regions’ ability to diversify in green activities, depending on relatedness across technological and industrial fields in the region. Relatedness is known to be one of the main factors supporting collaboration since it enables players to share and transfer knowledge by avoiding lock-in situations due to excessive similarity and redundant knowledge, as well as excessive diversity and a lack of linkages across parties. All these arguments introduce our second hypothesis: H2: The more extensive the green collaboration capacity of a region, the greater its competitive advantage. A large part of the regional innovation literature stresses the relevance of spatial issues. Several studies have contributed to the local– global debate by exploring the spatial effect of collaborative innovation. Extensive attention has been devoted to investigating the effect of intra- and interregional collaboration (De Noni et  al., 2017; Sun & Cao, 2015), as well as the role played by global innovation networks (Chaminade & Plechero, 2015). On the one hand, spatial proximity can support the advantages of strong ties, in terms of trustful relationships, knowledge transfer and sharing, collaboration opportunities and knowledge spillover. In addition, it has been argued that other dimensions of proximity (cognitive, cultural, social, organisational, institutional) play a critical role in supporting collaboration by moderating the negative effect of spatial distance (Boschma, 2005). This means regions can extend their collaborative networks outside the region at the national and global levels by exploiting other forms of proximity on different mechanisms of control (in spite of trust). On the other hand, distant collaborations are supposed to foster access to more differentiated knowledge bases, increasing the recombinant potential of firms and regions for more radical and breakthrough innovations.

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According to the literature on spatial agglomeration, clusters and regions are the most important loci of innovation; they are able to maintain high levels of local buzz and collaboration because of the interdependence between different forms of proximity. However, regional clusters able to create global linkages show higher levels of growth and dynamism (Bathelt, Malmberg, & Maskell, 2004). In addition, regions have become knowledge hubs in global innovation networks (Gertler & Levitte, 2005). In other words, the local and global have been suspected to be complementary. Since a similar trend may be forecasted for green technologies and clusters, this chapter further disentangles the local, national and international green collaboration capacity of regions to stimulate a better understanding of the relationship between spatial features of green collaboration and regional competitiveness.

Methodology Setting and Data The interest of policymakers in the development and diffusion of env-tech is motivated by their potential to render environmental policies more effective and cost-efficient. Some governments are also motivated by the goal of creating new products, business opportunities and markets, thereby accelerating the transition to ‘green’ growth (Haščič & Migotto, 2015). Thus, the main aim of this research is to explore the role of green invention and green collaboration in enhancing the competitiveness of European regions. First, we have to define green invention. For these reasons, patent data are best suited for identifying technologies specifically related to the environment. This identification was conducted through a search based on the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC). The CPC system is an extension of the International Patent Classification (IPC) provided by the World Intellectual Patent Office (WIPO), and it has over 200,000 technology classes. CPC, introduced in 2013, is the result of a partnership between the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent

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Distribution of Eco-patents and Eco-patents collaboration

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Fig. 1  Distribution of environment-related technologies (env-techs) and env-tech collaboration in Europe over time

and Trademark Office (USPTO) in their mutual effort to develop a common, internationally compatible classification scheme for technical documents, particularly patent publications (Haščič & Migotto, 2015). Consequently, patent data allow specific ‘environmental’ technologies to be recognised. The search strategies presented in this chapter rely on the CPCY02 classes as much as possible. This is because the Y02 scheme allows selected climate change mitigation technologies to be identified even by non-specialists. Second, env-tech collaboration is defined as a collaborative network of inventors involved in the creation of env-tech and measured through co-patenting activities by using data about patents granted by the EPO and relative inventors per year and region, as provided by the OECD RegPat1 database (release version February 20162). Patents in env-tech represent only a small portion of the The OECD REGPAT database presents patent data that have been linked to regions according to the addresses of the applicants and inventors. The data have been ‘regionalised’ at a very detailed level so that more than 2000 regions are covered across OECD countries. 2  Regional Patent Data provided by OECD RegPat were updated at the end of 2011. 1 

overall patenting activity in Europe, but the importance of environment-related patents and env-tech collaboration has been increasing over the years (see Fig. 1). Due to the lack of data related to control variables and the operationalisation of the dependent variable, our final sample involves 232 (starting from 284) regions in 29 countries (European Union plus Norway). The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 2 is used to define the regional level. Furthermore, data from Eurostat have been collected to define control variables, such as research and development (R&D) expenditures or human capital. Finally, data from Cambridge Econometrics are used to operationalise our dependent variable—regional competitiveness. Cambridge Econometrics maintains the European Regional Database. It provides a complete and consistent historical time series of data for the period 1980–2015. With regional (NUTS 2 and 3) and sectoral disaggregation, it offers a unique database relevant to academic, policy and trend analysis. The final panel dataset covers the period from 2000 to 2013. Therefore, because of these variables’ structure, the number of time series in the panel dataset is limited to T = 11.

Green Invention as Leverage for Economic Growth in Locally Collaborative European Regions

Variables Dependent Variable Regional industry GVA growth. GVA is an indicator of the economic activity and the value of production of a country or a region. It reflects the total value of all goods and services produced less the value of goods and services used for intermediate consumption in their production. The term ‘value added’ (VA) explains the improvements a region gives its products or services before offering them on the local or international markets. VA can be considered a mark-up added by the producers of a region to enhance the value of regional products and services. VA is the difference between the price of products and services and the cost of producing them. The higher the mark-up is, the greater the ability of producers in a region to transform external inputs into highly competitive products and services using their capabilities and competences. For this reason, the regional industry GVA growth is the most suitable variable to understand the increase of competitiveness of regions. To operationalise our dependent variable, we used the industry GVA provided by Cambridge Econometrics, mainly because technological innovations have a direct impact on the industrial sector (Antonioli, Borghesi, & Mazzanti, 2016). We calculated the growth of GVA as a measure of regional competitiveness as the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in a 3-year moving time window to capture short/medium-term trends starting from the year 2001. Thus, the first 3-year moving window is related to the period 2001–2003, the second to 2002–2004 and the last to 2011–2013. We also used a 5-year moving time window to test the robustness of our findings in a different period, but the results were qualitatively similar. Exploratory Variables Env-tech diffusion. We used the fractionalised number of environmental-related patents generated in a region, calculated as the number of env-­ techs weighted by the number of inventors in the same region as a proxy of the regional capacity to produce new technological knowledge related to green and clean technologies. The higher this

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capacity is, the higher the ability of a region to create new ‘clean products’ with higher mark-ups or new and efficient processes to reduce energy costs, waste and pollution should be. To measure this variable, we used the CPC. Specifically, we used the ‘CPCY02’ scheme, which contains several sets of env-techs, including those directed at the following: (a) the traditional domains of environmental management (air and water pollution, waste disposal, etc.); (b) adaptation to water scarcity; (c) addressing biodiversity threats; and (d) mitigating climate change (energy, greenhouse gases, transport, buildings). These sets of env-­ techs are directed at four major environmental policy objectives—the mitigation of human health impacts of environmental pollution, addressing water scarcity, fostering ecosystem health and climate change mitigation. Finally, the fractionalised number of environment-related patents per region r and year t are counted as the sum of inventors’ shares weighted for the regional share, as follows: Number of green patentsr, t = ∑∑Invshare × Re gshare , r, t i (1) where Invshare is the share that inventor i is involved in the environment-related patent creation, while Regshare is the regional share if inventor i is registered in different regions3 (De Noni et al., 2017, 2018). Env-tech collaboration propensity. In the patenting process, the number of collaborative links among inventors within and across regions is a proxy for regional connectivity capacity. Specifically, since technological flows among firms and inventors are favoured by spatial and social proximity (Sun, 2016), we distinguished three different variables, which are as follows:

Reg_share and Inv_share are directly provided by the RegPat database. Reg_share is less than 1 if the inventor has multiple address registrations due to the mobility across regions. Inv_share is less than 1 when the patent is co-invented. If a patent application has more than one inventor, it is equally fractionalized based on the number of inventors.

3 

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1. Env-tech local collaboration propensity as the number of env-techs involving more inventors within the same European region divided by the total number of regional env-techs. Nooteboom (2000) and De Noni et al. (2017) suggest that high levels of local collaborations can support knowledge flows between inventors because of spatial, social and cultural proximity, which increases collaborative opportunities, facilitates interactions among actors and enhances organisational absorptive capacity; 2. Env-tech national collaboration propensity as the number of env-techs involving more inventors from different regions but within the same European country divided by the total number of regional env-techs. For the local collaboration, we have a slight increase of spatial, social and cultural distance among inventors and inventors’ organisations that could lead to explorations in related technological segments (Makri, Hitt, & Lane, 2010); and. 3. Env-tech international collaboration propensity as the number of env-techs involving more inventors from different regions and different European countries divided by the total number of regional env-techs. In this case, we reach the maximum level of distance among inventors and inventors’ organisations. Thus, the potential absorptive capacity of organisations should be less strong than in the case of local collaboration with higher levels of spatial, social and cultural proximity. In contrast, a high increase of the distance between inventors and organisations should stimulate combination and exploration in unrelated technological segments. This point was adapted from Ganzaroli, De Noni, Orsi, and Belussi (2016), who mainly suggest that close proximity should support more exploitative inventions, while more relaxed levels of proximity should strengthen explorative inventions. Both types of green inventions (exploitative and explorative) could participate in increasing the range of green products and technologies, and therefore, increase the ability of regions to gener-

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ate value for their economy and enhance their competitiveness.

Control Variables GVA. We used the level of industry GVA at time t − 1 of a region as control for the VA CAGR because higher starting levels of VA may negatively influence the regional ability to continuously increase the growth in the following periods. R&D expenditures. R&D intensity is expected to have a positive effect on the productivity and competitiveness of regions and countries because of the positive relationship existing between technological input and output (Castaldi, Frenken, & Los, 2015; Gilsing, Nooteboom, Vanhaverbeke, Duysters, & van den Oord, 2008). We operationalised R&D expenditures as gross domestic expenditure on R&D as a percentage of gross domestic product. It is an indicator of the capacity to invest in the creation and production of new knowledge at the EU, national and regional levels. Human capital. Since the attitude of a region to produce, innovate and compete may depend on the average level of human capital within the local economy (Lee, Florida, & Gates, 2010), we used tertiary educational attainment as a proxy for human capital. The higher the educational level, the higher the potentiality of a region to generate new knowledge, produce more and compete in an effective way. This indicator, provided by Eurostat, is specifically based on the EU Labour Force Survey. It is defined as the percentage of the population aged 25–64 who have successfully completed tertiary studies. Population density. Externalities related to the urbanisation processes are proxied by population density (Mameli, Iammarino, & Boschma, 2012). Generally, urbanisation is positively correlated with the presence of industry research laboratories, schools, associations and other knowledge-generating organisations (Frenken, Van Oort, & Verburg, 2007). Thus, urban economies may better support manufacturing productivity than non-­urban economies do.

Green Invention as Leverage for Economic Growth in Locally Collaborative European Regions

Employment rate. Employment rates are defined as a measure of the extent to which available labour resources (people available to work) are being used. They are calculated as the ratio of the employed to the working age population. Despite the potential established through human capital, the regional capability to produce and compete also depends on the employees’ skills and abilities, in particular their areas of competence and their creativity. We expect that a higher rate of employment should lead to higher productivity performances. Year. Because we want to remove the influence of time trends over the study period, we controlled for the effect of all unobserved factors due to macroeconomic trends, financial crises

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and other factors that may affect the industry productivity by including dummies for each year of the study period into the model. Regions. To capture time-invariant country-­ specific effects, we included dummies for each region of the study in the model.

Model Estimation Our dependent variable measures regional competitiveness by computing the industry GVA growth generated by a region in a given year. Because the dependent variable—GVA growth— can take on continuous values, a Gaussian specification is recommended. Thus, we used the following formula:

VGA CAGR i ,t ( 0,1,2 )

= ai + β1 ( Eco technology diffusion i ,t −1 )

+ β 2 ( Eco technology local collaboration propensityi ,t −1 )

+ β 3 ( Eco technology national collaboration propensityi ,t −1 )

+ β 4 ( Eco technology international collaboration propensityi ,t −1 )

+ β 5 ( GVA i ,t −1 ) + β 6 ( R & D expendituresi ,t −1 ) + β 7 ( Human capitali ,t −1 ) + β 7 ( Population density i ,t −1 ) + β 7 ( Employment rate i ,t −1 )



+ β 7 ( Year dummies ) + β 7 ( Region dummies ) + ε i ,t .

We estimated the regression models using the generalised estimating equations (GEEs) to control for heterogeneity at the regional level and the existence of any systematic difference across regions due to unobserved effects. This methodology allows for correlation in the dependent variable across observations over time due to repeated yearly measurements by estimating the correlation structure of the error terms (Zeger & Liang, 1986). A good starting point is to choose the correlation structure that makes sense given the nature of the data. Because these are repeated measures data, an exchangeable or an autoregressive (AR(1)) structure is a good choice. However, this method is robust in the sense that using it allows one to draw correct inferences from the data even if the correlation model was incorrectly specified.



(2)

We ran the model by imposing an exchangeable correlation structure, which assumes that each pair of observations in a group has the same correlation across time. We also used an AR(1) assuming the correlations between repeated measurements of the dependent variable decline from period to period, but we found the results to be qualitatively similar to those reported in this chapter. We report significance levels using Huber–White robust standard errors to control for any residual heteroscedasticity across panels. We obtained our results using the ‘geepack’ package in R4 (version 3.5.0).

R is an open source software environment for statistical computing and graphics.

4 

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Results Table 1 presents the results of descriptive statistics for all the variables used in the regression models. The correlation values (not reported here

due to space constraints but available upon request) are relatively low under the cutoff point of 0.50 (O’Brien, 2007). The only exception is the correlation between local collaboration propensity and national collaboration propensity.

Table 1  Descriptive statistics Variables Industry GVA growth Industry GVA R&D expenditures Human capital Population density Employment rate Env-tech diffusion Env-tech collaboration propensity Env-tech local collaboration propensity Env-tech national collaboration propensity Env-tech international collaboration propensity

Mean 0.01 8088.78 415.83 30.05 250.65 65.12 11.39 0.05 0.31 0.32 0.1

St. dev. 0.06 8310.53 470.45 15 434.39 8.07 24.12 0.09 0.34 0.35 0.22

Min −0.47 92.79 1.8 3 3.3 37.8 0 0 0 0 0

Max 0.58 74,035.13 2876.6 84.4 4289.3 80.9 288.3 1 1 1 1

Fig. 2  Distribution of the number of environment-related technologies (env-techs) in European regions over the period 2000–2011

Green Invention as Leverage for Economic Growth in Locally Collaborative European Regions

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Table 2  Generalised estimating equation (GEE) results Dependent variable–regional industry GVA growth Intercept

GEE model results Mod. 1 Mod. 2 0.024 0.024 (0.003)*** (0.003)***

Explanatory variables Env-tech diffusion Env-tech collaboration prop. Env-tech local collaboration prop. Env-tech national collaboration prop. Env-tech international collaboration prop. Control variables Industry GVA R&D expenditures Human capital Population density Employment rate Year (dummies) Region (dummies) Observations EU NUTS 2 regions No. of years QIC Quasi-likelihood LR test (change over Mod. 1)

Mod. 3 0.023 (0.003)***

Mod. 4 0.024 (0.003)***

Mod. 5 0.024 (0.003)***

0.004 (0.001)** 0.001 (0.001) 0.003 (0.001)** −0.003 (0.001)** −0.002 (0.001)* −0.005 (0.001)*** 0.004 (0.001)*** 0.001 (0.004) −0.003 (0.001)*** 0.001 (0.002) Yes Yes 2552 232 11 78.32 −2.34

−0.007 (0.001)*** 0.003 (0.002)* −0.001 (0.004) −0.003 (0.001)*** 0.000 (0.002) Yes Yes 2552 232 11 82.05 −2.32 8.41(1)**

−0.005 (0.001)*** 0.004 (0.001)*** 0.001 (0.004)

−0.006 (0.001)*** 0.004 (0.001)** 0.001 (0.004)

−0.006 (0.001)*** 0.004 (0.001)** 0.001 (0.004)

−0.003 (0.001)*** 0.001 (0.002) Yes Yes 2552 232 11 80.08 −2.34 0.53(1)

−0.003 (0.001)*** 0.001 (0.002) Yes Yes 2552 232 11 80.08 −2.33 7.75(1)**

−0.003 (0.001)*** 0.001 (0.002) Yes Yes 2552 232 11 82.26 −2.33 7.89(2)*

Notes: Standard errors are heteroskedastic-consistent (‘robust’). Coefficients are mean centred standardised. Significant levels are ***p