Path Renewal or Path Dependence? The Role of Industrial Culture in Regional Restructuring

Abstract

In recent decades, manufacturing industries in Europe have undergone a deep transformation due to global market competition, automation, and adaptation to globalized production patterns. The impact of deindustrialization and regional restructuring has been particularly strong on regions outside of metropolitan areas, which may be locked in their specific development path and cannot benefit from agglomeration effects. However, scholars are increasingly shifting their attention to processes of regional renewal, emphasizing the strengths and potentials of such regions. Such potentials holds the concept of Industrial Culture which is defined as a particular cultural setting made up of certain intangible assets, such as skills, attitudes, traditions, tangible monuments, and artefacts. Based on the case study of the district of Zwickau, the authors identify three dimensions of Industrial Culture. These cultural, social, and economic aspects can be underscored by different—albeit often overlapping—actions, opening up new development options for the region if embedded in a broad network of regional actors. Industrial Culture can thus be perceived as a strategic concept to form a coherent approach of regional development by integrating various existing activities in a region.

A Research Agenda for Small and Medium-Sized Towns

“…These are tangible remnants of older industrial production, such as industrial sites, buildings and landscapes, which are commonly converted for tourism use (Bosák et al, 2018) or other forms of brownfield development (Kantor-Pietraga et al, 2021;Marot and Harfst, 2021). However, Görmar and Harfst (2019) caution that this may be too narrow an understanding of what industrial culture can offer, and that intangible aspects are even more important for new path development. Industrial culture can foster neoindustrial development, for example by upgrading traditional industrial skills, innovation cultures or artisanal production.…”

Semi-Natural Areas on Post-Mining Brownfields as an Opportunity to Strengthen the Attractiveness of a Small Town. An Example of Radzionków in Southern Poland

“…An essential issue in the research is the conclusion on the support of transformation by entities and institutions located at various levels of administration. For most such cities, which are usually affected by a multi-faceted crisis, challenges related to revitalization [31,32] and finding a new development path are too big [33,34]. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the emergence of problems with finding new functions for post-mining areas triggers a social need for change and transformation.…”

A modified NK algorithm based on BP neural network and DEMATEL for evolution path optimization of urban innovation ecosystem

“…The seventh step is to calculate the influence relationship of each factor, that is, the value of parameter K. First, the comprehensive influence matrix Z is transposed to obtain matrix Z T , and then the matrix Z T is transformed into the adjacency matrix P according to the threshold β. The calculation process is shown in formula (9). Finally, the influence matrix Q of the modified NK model is obtained by setting p 11 , p 22, , … , p nn in the adjacency matrix P as 1, and the K value of each element is obtained according to the matrix Q.…”

“…A healthy urban innovation ecosystem is not unchangeable, but constantly realizes evolution and growth through the metabolism of innovation elements [8]. As a typical complex adaptive system, the evolution of urban innovation ecosystem is path dependent, and the evolution order and direction of innovation elements will affect the efficiency and performance of system evolution to a certain extent [9]. Scholars have carried out some explorations around the urban innovation ecosystem, mainly focusing on the connotation, structure, efficiency and evaluation of the urban innovation ecosystem; the research on the urban innovation ecosystem based on the perspective of system evolution has just started.…”