The Associational Economy: Firms, Regions, and Innovation

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.