Markku Sotarauta

Tampere University | UTA · Faculty of Management and Business

Innovation policy is a key public policy in many parts of the world and is seen as crucial for securing a better future. It reflects the explicit understanding of knowledge and innovation being fundamental for the economic performance not only of nations but also of regions and cities. In this chapter, we focus on the various rationales informing F...

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of public administration in Finland. Many of the basic structures of Finnish public administration have remained intact during the country’s relatively short independence of 100 years, but Finland has been able to tackle major turbulence ranging from wars and financial crises to the Covid-19 pandemic. Fin...

The local scientific committee for IRSPM Tampere edition 16-18 April 2024 in Finland invites panel proposals for the upcoming conference. In addition to the numerous questions of general relevance for the field of public management the conference welcomes panels investigating various forms of hybridity. https://events.tuni.fi/irspm2024/ https://w...

Mitä hallintotieteellinen tutkimus on ja minkälaista se voisi olla? Miten yhteiskunnallinen kehitys ja hallinnon tutkimus ovat sidoksissa toisiinsa? Hallintotieteellinen tutkimus kohdistuu julkishallinnon toimintaan hallinnon ja politiikan välimaastossa. Siihen kytkeytyy kriittinen keskustelu demokratian murroskehityksestä, julkisorganisaatioiden m...

This paper considers the nature, origins and expression of place leadership in communities undergoing large-scale economic transformation. It examines where people look for leadership in the management of the places where they live, and how their perspectives are affected by an adverse event. It documents community attitudes on the influence those...

Despite the rapidly expanding literature on agency in regional development, the methodological approaches available to study it have not followed theoretical development and empirical studies. This article aims to shed light on methodological issues related to the study of path dependence, path creation and agency. The article’s main purpose is to...

Innovation policy is a key public policy in many parts of the world and seen as crucial for securing a better future. It reflects the explicit understanding of knowledge and innovation being fundamental for the economic performance not only of nations but also of regions and cities. In this chapter, we focus on the various rationales informing Finl...

This paper further explores the novel concept of the opportunity space, which refers to the limits and possibilities of regional development trajectories and the idea of deliberative agency. Opportunity spaces are formed, perceived and used by individual agents or groups of agents and serve as a bridge between structure and agency. Drawing on six c...

This paper investigates the role of human agency in 40 phases of regional economic development in 12 Nordic regions over 30 years. It contributes with a theoretical framework to study agency over time and a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis based on a unique dataset combining over 200 interviews, with printed and online sources, and quanti...

In this paper, we identify the patterns of change agency in peripheral regions and the forces shaping them. The following are the main research questions: (a) what are the patterns of local change agency like in peripheral regions and (b) what causes patterns of local change agency? We seek answers to these questions by carrying out a detailed anal...

In this chapter, we 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. We propose measurement concepts based on the use of green sk...

This chapter argues for the need to focus more explicitly on patterns of place leadership in different types of regions. It aims to shed light on leadership patterns by exploring by whom and how local path development is promoted in two different types of peripheral regions in Finland; Eastern Lapland and Jacobstad. The main objective of the paper...

This article analyses changes in the Finnish innovation policy from the early 2000s to 2016. The contribution is twofold. First, we propose a framework to understand and characterise changes in and different approaches to innovation policy implementation. The framework highlights the evolutive nature of innovation policies and sheds light on often...

There is increasing pressure on academics to show the impact of their research. At the same time, policy-makers are expected to draw upon a wide base of evidence, including academic research, to develop innovative solutions to often intractable societal problems. Despite these complementary objectives of impact and use of evidence, the relationship...

The rapidly expanding stream of path development studies recognises that translating observations from past paths to conscious path creation requires conceptually linking agency to path development frameworks. Actors frame issues about and for the future, coordinate their actions in the present and make sense of what may have transpired in the past...

This paper investigates the concept of opportunity space as a driver and a fundament for regional economic growth. In the regional context, opportunity space outlines the limits and possibilities of the regional path development. The concepts of opportunity and opportunity space include the idea deliberative agency. Opportunity space is formed and...

This paper presents a theoretical framework for understanding place leadership and combinatorial power. Place leadership is defined as the mobilization and coordination of diverse groups of actors to achieve a collective effort aimed at enhancing the development of a specific place. Place leadership is a form of agency that works across institution...

In this paper, we explore how place leadership aims at producing transformational changes in the context of green growth. We ask what the main leadership strategies are that key actors pursue to gain leverage in their efforts to boost green growth. We use the well-known categories of transactional and transformational leadership. The following are...

This working paper summarises the results of eight comparative case studies on green growth in four Nordic countries: Northern Jutland and Southern Denmark in Denmark, Tampere and Central Finland for Finland, Hordaland and Trøndelag for Norway, and Scania and Värmland for Sweden. The eight case studies give some background information and explain...

The study of regional growth paths is a key theme in economic geography and of elemental interest for regional development. This paper addresses the interplay between path-dependent, structural forces and the construction and utilization of opportunities through agentic processes. Extending the evolutionary framework , it is argued that not only hi...

Work on large-scale plant closures has provided a rich vein of scholarship and academic debate. This paper articulates a new set of methods and concepts for understanding how large-scale redundancies associated with the closure of manufacturing plants affects society and the economy at the local, regional and national scales. It posits the need for...

While there has been a shared understanding that innovation policy is about rendering institutional change, there has been an emerging interest in identifying the institutional logics underlying innovation policy. To date, few studies have attempted to conceptualise these logics. This paper develops a novel conceptual framework for understanding in...

The concept of smart specialization has rapidly acquired a central position in European policy and academic circles. It raises interesting challenges for the regional studies agenda. First, smart specialization is about not only policy formulation, implementation and evaluation but also pooling scattered resources, competencies and powers to serve...

This chapter argues for the need to focus more explicitly on institutions and the related agency to gain a better understanding of the relationship between micro and macro levels and thus of path creation. The core concepts related to path creation and institutional agency are investigated. The research question is: What are the main institutional...

The objective of this paper is to fill a gap in the literature on place leadership by examining variation in the practices of place leadership across six countries in order to distinguish those features that appear common, and those that are context dependent. It makes use of regional economic development issues, and does so in recognition of both...

The study of regional growth paths is a key theme in economic geography and of elemental interest for policy makers concerned with regional development. Evolutionary theory explains the path-dependent nature of regional development, and points to its open-ended nature. This paper addresses the interplay between path-dependent, structural forces and...

The concept of smart specialisation has rapidly acquired a central position in European policy and academic circles. It raises interesting challenges for the regional studies agenda. First, smart specialisation is not only about policy formulation, implementation and evaluation but also about pooling scattered resources, competencies and powers to...

In this paper, we argue there is a need to focus more explicitly on institutions and related agency to understand better path creation. Many studies have shown how institutions mediate in subtle but pervasive ways economic development and path creation. Institutions frame the choices and actions of many actors as well as their interaction, and cons...

Held over the 20th-21st October 2016 at the Institut de Management Gouvernance and Territoriale Gouvernance (IMPGT) Aix-Marseille Université, France, this most recent seminar was one in a series convened since 2010 by members of the Regional Studies Association’s international research network on Leadership in Urban and Regional Development....

Making sense of leadership in urban and regional development. Regional Studies. This editorial paves the way for the articles addressing several contemporary sub-national leadership experiences in England, Australia, Finland, China, the Netherlands, Norway, Estonia, Denmark and Sweden. It introduces place leadership as a mode of reflexive agency in...

There is an emerging consensus that place leadership is the missing piece in the local and regional development puzzle. In this context, leadership is a hidden form of agency, shadowed by such visible forms of influence as structures and formal institutions, as well as development programs and plans. This article argues that one of the most central...

The main aims of this paper are (a) to construct a generic conceptual model for the Triple Helix model based on competence sets and hence (b) to identify the system-level generic competencies needed in the emergence of a new industry. This paper suggests that to gain additional analytical leverage on the Triple Helix model, we need to study it also...

This paper argues that lack of focus on agency, intention, and interest is a weakness in regional innovation studies and studies focusing on knowledge dynamics. There is a need to systematically anchor a role for agency in institutionally oriented regional innovation studies, and thus to reach beyond snapshots of top-down institutions, and to produ...

The 21st century has been dominated by an almost compulsive race to find new pathways for city development. As cities seek to regenerate via the knowledge-based economy, now more than ever dynamic leadership is required order to navigate new and complex challenges while building community. This book is about generative leadership in knowledge city...

The 21st century has been dominated by an almost compulsive race to find new pathways for city development. As cities seek to regenerate via the knowledge-based economy, now more than ever dynamic leadership is required order to navigate new and complex challenges while building community. This book is about generative leadership in knowledge city...

Sotarauta M. and Beer A. Governance, agency and place leadership: lessons from a cross-national analysis, Regional Studies. This paper argues that few accounts of place leadership have found an appropriate balance between structural and individual processes, resulting, on the one hand, in an over-emphasis on the actions of a limited number of chari...

In this paper we ask what is the place of institutional entrepreneurship in a (regional) innovation system. The main research questions addressed are (a) how does a new science-based concentration of innovation become institutionalized in an innovation system; (b) who are the institutional entrepreneurs and what do they actually do in their efforts...

This paper argues that obstruction of agency, intention and interest is a weakness in institutional studies in geography. There is a need to systematically anchor a role for agency in institutionally oriented combinatorial knowledge dynamics studies, and thus to reach beyond snapshots of top-down institutions, and to produce a more nuanced view on...

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