Claudia Klaerding’s research while affiliated with Vrana GmbH (Germany) and other places

Since 2006 economic geographers have been confronted with attempts to constitute a new paradigm of evolutionary economic geography. This paper aims at advancing evolutionary economic geography by reviewing its core critique and proposed solutions, particularly that of integrating the perspective of a geographical political economy. Although the authors sympathize with the identified shortcomings of evolutionary economic geography, the proposed alternative approach, geographical political economy, is regarded as being too narrow and reductionist. By combining evolutionary and relational economic geography in certain respects a plea is made for advancing evolutionary economic geography by engaged pluralism.

HASSINK R. and KLAERDING C. The end of the learning region as we knew it; towards learning in space, Regional Studies. Since its launch in the mid-1990s, the learning region has been much debated by academics and applied in regional policies, which are as such positive signs. However, the concept has also been criticized for its fuzziness and its spatial (or regional) fetishism. By applying a cultural and relational perspective, the paper postulates a shift from the learning region concept that studies regions as places of learning to a new analytical framework, learning in space, which studies culture-influenced learning processes in relations or networks of people and organizations.

Wind energy-related employment has been surging recently in Germany: it rose from 9200 in 1997 to 90,000 in 2007 and is estimated to be 112,000 in 2020. The industry particularly emerged in coastal, Northern Germany. Recently, big hopes have been particularly set on the offshore wind energy industry. Two recently discussed evolutionary concepts explain the emergence of new industries, such as wind energy, in space: the windows of locational opportunity concept stresses the locational freedom in the earliest stages of industrial development, whereas path creation emphasizes the role of existing industrial development paths, such as shipbuilding, from which new industrial paths, such as wind energy, emerge. This paper aims at analysing whether the new industrial path of offshore wind energy emerged out of existing paths, mainly shipbuilding, in the five states of coastal Germany, namely Bremen, Lower Saxony, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It concludes that shipbuilding only indirectly affected the emergence of the new industrial development path of the offshore wind energy industry in Northern Germany.

Economic geographers have recently been confronted with attempts to constitute a new paradigm of evolutionary economic geography. The paper aims at advancing theoretical economic geography by reviewing its core critique and proposed solutions, particularly that of integrating the perspective of a geographical political economy. Although we sympathize with the identified shortcomings of an evolutionary economic geography we criticise the alternative approach for being too narrow and reductionist. In contrast, a relational economic perspective is argued to theorize the core weaknesses of EEG, namely power, social agency and particularly the interrelatedness of influences on different scales, more comprehensively. By combining evolutionary and relational approaches in certain respects we, furthermore, plead for an advancement of theoretical economic geography by engaged pluralism.

One of the most significant changes in the global economy today is the strong increase in outgoing foreign direct investment (OFDI) from emerging economies to industrialised countries. Whereas investment in less developed countries is often motivated by the sourcing of natural resources and cheap labour, knowledge and technology-seeking is an increasingly important motive for emerging multinationals investing in developed economies. The current paper is focussed on the role of emerging multinationals as knowledge-transfer agents and pursues three aims: First, to unravel the distinguishing features of emerging multinationals (as compared to ‘traditional’ multinationals), secondly, to critically discuss the usefulness of conventional theoretical concepts in explaining this new phenomenon and thirdly, to launch a research agenda for near-future research on emerging multinationals, with a particular focus on the economic geography of international knowledge flows

This paper analyses how cultural perceptions of Chinese return migrants affect the design of interfirm practices with native business partners in China's knowledge intensive industries. Theories related to interfirm networking such as the innovation system approach ascribe culture to spatial/territorial scales, particularly the national. By taking the perspectives of Chinese returnees in top management positions the paper challenges the apparent national cultures and spatially defined cultural boundaries. The factors that underlie the perceived cultural stereotype of Chinese business routines show neither such clear spatiality nor predominantly national characteristics. Cultural effects on economic organisation are hence argued to be better understood from a relational perspective.

The acquisition of new knowledge is a crucial capital of highly skilled remigrants and its utilisation in home countries can play a major role for regional economic development. By reviewing the remigration literature it is shown that remigrants are able to create innovation in their home countries and promote regional development. But also theoretical deficits can be identified regarding the structural conditions of transferring new knowledge across regions which precedes potential innovation processes. Recent theoretical ideas cannot sufficiently explain why remigrants become innovative to varying degrees depending on their home regions. A cultural approach of economic geography is needed to highlight the cultural construction of the economy. It allows for remigrants to be perceived as knowledge brokers, which crucially influences the returnee’s capacity to innovate.

Economic geographers have recently been confronted with attempts to constitute both relational and evolutionary economic geography. The two proposed paradigms have much in common, such as the perception of space as being socially constructed instead of a pre-given entity with causal powers. Until now, however, astonishingly little has been written about the differences between these proposed paradigms. By comparatively focussing on three research issues, the paper concludes that the conceptual differences are rather subtle and that the relational approach seems to include a wider and therefore, more unspecific perspective to explain the distribution of economic activities over space.