The Annals of Regional Science - Call for Papers - Sustainable Development Challenges in Ecosystems and Learning Regions

The influence of the entrepreneurial human capital on regional development is a relevant research topic for scholars, entrepreneurs, and policy makers, that has been attracting considerable attention in the fields of economic geography, entrepreneurship and regional science (Leitão and Baptista, 2009; Baptista and Leitão, 2015), as well as in policy consulting and decision making processes, notably seeking to foster the emergence of new firms as a driver of sustainable regional renewal and development (Alvedalen and Boschma 2017; Riaz, Leitão, and Cantner, 2022; Dejardin and Levratto, 2022). However, there is still limited knowledge in terms of the enablers of regional dynamics, change and embeddedness, in the multidimensional context of global, national, regional, and local ecosystems.

The holistic construct of an Entrepreneurial, Innovative and Sustainable ecosystem, presented by Leitão, Alves, Krueger and Park (2018), is relative to the collective and transversal nature of entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainability. New firms emerge and grow not only because there are entrepreneurs to create and develop them. Following Leitão, Pereira and Gonçalves (2022), new ventures emerge and may flourish also because they are in a certain region where a complex network of ecosystems and interfacing structures, such as science and technology parks, incubators, accelerators, and social innovation hubs, are coexisting and supporting the inventive and innovative action of entrepreneurs.

Despite the importance of the institutional and networks approaches explored so far in the literature, much remains unknown regarding the role played by different types of universities, leaderships, interfacing structures, and agencies, in determining economic, innovative, and sustainable performance, at the regional level. Another gap found in the literature is concerning entrepreneurial and open innovative ecosystems, fuelled through a knowledge production function provided by universities.

There is an increasing literature suggesting reasons behind ecosystems emergence, but it fails to examine in detail the exact mechanisms behind it, namely, the role played by local conditions associated with natural, historical, cultural, religious, indigenous, and ethnics factors, as well as endogenous productive factors (such as, specific knowledge assets, human capital, social or relational capital, cognitive capital, organizational capital, and institutional capital), using a crossed fertilizing approach, and mixing the economics of entrepreneurship, economics of geography, and regional science. This gap may be addressed by linking, for example, coopetition, innovative behaviour, diversified and flexible industrial or services districts, servitized-clusters, co-creation ecosystems, open data hubs, and digital platforms. If physical and/or digital agglomeration, and the quality of networks, improve the match among government, firms, universities, citizens, and social entrepreneurs, then the region might be more able to ensure enduring productivity and sustainable competitive advantages.

Key topics and research questions of the collection:

• Absorptive capacity of regions;
• Universities and regional knowledge spillovers;
• Cognitive capital and learning regions;
• Diversification, complexity, embeddedness, and performance of regional ecosystems;
• Drivers of innovation, entrepreneurship, embeddedness and change in regions;
• Industrial or services districts, innovation, entrepreneurship and productivity;
• Intellectual capital, regional development and growth;
• Smart Specialization Strategies for Sustainability (4S) and learning regions;
• Sustainable development pathways in regions;
• Sustainable development, cultural tourism and entrepreneurship;
• Sustainable networks of small and medium cities;
• University ecosystems and regional spillovers;
• Urban entrepreneurship versus rural entrepreneurship.

We encourage both theoretical and empirical contributions that address one or more of the listed topics above, using systematic literature reviews, meta-analysis, scoping reviews, content analysis, social network analysis, case studies, or applied econometric methods. The collection is also open to research addressing other adjacent and related topics.

Submission deadline for full papers: May 31, 2024
All papers will have to pass the screening by guest editors and the journal regular refereeing process. All accepted articles will be published immediately in their final version on the journal website, as part of the topical collection, with first publications expected around November 2024.

Later submissions may be considered.

Guest Editors:

João Leitão, University of Beira Interior, NECE; & CEG-IST and ICS, University of Lisbon, Portugal
jleitao@ubi.pt

Paula Remolado, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
cris.remoaldo@gmail.com

Marcus Dejardin, DeFiPP-CERPE, Université de Namur & LIDAM-CIRTES, UCLouvain, Belgium
marcus.dejardin@unamur.be

References:

Alvedalen J., & Boschma R. (2017). ‘A critical review of entrepreneurial ecosystems research: Towards a future research agenda’. European Planning Studies, 25(6):887–903

Baptista, R., & Leitão, J. (Eds.) (2015). Entrepreneurship, Human Capital, and Regional Development. Springer International Publishing. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-12871-9

Dejardin, M., & Levratto, N. (2022). Entrepreneurial territories: measures, determinants, and outcomes. Annals of Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-022-01198-8

Leitão J., Pereira D., & Gonçalves Â. (2022). ‘Business Incubators, Accelerators, and Performance of Technology-Based Ventures: A Systematic Literature Review’. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity. 2022; 8(1):46. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc8010046

Leitão, J., & Baptista, R. (Eds.) (2009). Public Policies for Fostering Entrepreneurship. Springer US. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-0249-8

Leitão, J., Alves, H., Krueger, N., & Park, J. (Eds.) (2018). Entrepreneurial, Innovative and Sustainable Ecosystems - Best Practices and Implications for Quality of Life. Series: Applying Quality of Life Research: Best Practices, Springer. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-71014-3. Hardcover ISBN 978-3-319-71013-6

Riaz, MF., Leitão, J., & Cantner, U. (2022). ‘Measuring the efficiency of an entrepreneurial ecosystem at municipality level: does institutional transparency play a moderating role?’. Eurasian Business Review. DOI: 10.1007/s40821-021-00194-w