Philip Cooke and Kevin Morgan focus on the ways firms are rediscovering the importance of regions in their quest to improve competitiveness through innovation. Evidence from firm and governance practices in four European regions supports more general arguments of the emergence of an `associational' economy based on partnership, networking, and collective learning.

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

Why do some regions grow faster than others? Why are some more innovative? How do geographic factors - like proximity - affect the process of technological change? The Associational Economy provides a useful primer on these questions for all those interested in the regional dimensions of innovation and economic development. The authors are extremely well read and provide a useful and excellent work of theoretical synthesis, integrating a wide body of theory from Joseph Schumpeter and Alfred Marshall to evolutionary economics, increasing returns, path dependence, organizational learning, social capital, and agglomeration. This book is clearly worthwhile for regional specialists, but may have even more to offer economists and other students of technological innovation who want to learn more about the role of regions in the porcesses of innovation and economic growth.

`Why do some regions grow faster than others? Why are some more innovative? How do geographic factors - like proximity - affect the process of technological change? The Associational Economy provides a useful primer on these questions for all those interested in the regional dimensions of innovation and economic development. The authors are extremely well read and provide a useful and excellent work of theoretical synthesis, integrating a wide body of theory from Joseph Schumpeter and Alfred Marshall to evolutionary economics, increasing returns, path dependence, organizational learning, social capital, and agglomeration. This book is clearly worthwhile for regional specialists, but may have even more to offer economists and other students of technological innovation who want to learn more about the role of regions in the porcesses of innovation and economic growth.' Richard Florida. Research Policy. `Europe's leading English-language writers on contemporary industrial districts... an impressive and informative volume that should be read widely as the definitive work on the contemporary state of European industrial regions... the strength of the cases is that they grapple with hard problems... THe authors provide insightful analyses... this is an exceedingly reasonable and moderate book.' Enterprise and Society `...important book. ... The presentation of four regional case studies ... is inserted within a robust theoretical framework./ What appears here is the state-of-the-art on the multilevel approach to industrial and developmental policies.' Marco Bellandi. Regional Studies. 1998.

makes a significant contribution to the growing interest in local roots of technological change and regional competitiveness will reach a wide audience across the social sciences and business education the authors are regarded as leaders in their field includes surveys of key European regions such as Baden-Württemberg, Emilia Romagna, South Wales, and the Basque region

makes a significant contribution to the growing interest in local roots of technological change and regional competitiveness will reach a wide audience across the social sciences and business education the authors are regarded as leaders in their field includes surveys of key European regions such as Baden-Württemberg, Emilia Romagna, South Wales, and the Basque region