Synopses & Reviews
Cooke and Morgan explore important issues of corporate reorganization in the context of heightened global competition, focusing upon how firms associate with regional milieu. In-depth studies of inter-firm and firm-agency interactions are presented for four European regions: Baden-Wurttemberg and Emilia-Romagna as accomplished regional economies; Wales and the Basque Country as learning regions. The book is theoretically informed by an evolutionary economics perspective and draws policy conclusions which emphasize the importance of decentralized industrial policy in support of both corporate and regional economic development ambitions. It concludes that the associational economy may be the third way between state and market coordination of modern economies.
Review
"It is an impressive and informative volume that should be read widely as the definitive work on the contemporary state of European industrial regions."--Enterprise and Society
About the Author
Philip Cooke is editor of the journal
European Planning Studies.
Table of Contents
The Associational Economy: Introduction
1. the Institutions of Innovation
2. Firms as Laboratories: Re-inventing the Corporation
3. The Region as a Nexus of Learning Processes
4. Baden-WD"u rttemberg: The Evolution of a Model Region
5. Emilia-Romagna: From Civic Culture to Global Networks
6. Wales: Innovating through GlobalLocal Interaction
7. The Basque Conundrum: Regional Autonomy and Economic Decline
8. Evolutionary Processes and Regional Practices