Regional Development: Opportunities, Flaws and Measures

Patrice Braun ft1Il giorno 25 giugno 2014, dalle ore 11 alle ore 13, presso l’aula Magna della Facoltà di Scienze Economiche, Giuridiche e Politiche, viale S. Ignazio 74, Cagliari, la prof.ssa Patrice Braun, della Federation University, Australia, terrà un seminario dal titolo:
Regional Development: Opportunities, Flaws and Measures
- Nel riquadro foto di Patrice Braun
- La pagina fb dell’evento
- Segue sintesi argomento seminario

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Abstract
Recognising that economic stimulation is accomplished by designing regional-level interventions – that allows actors within regions to shape their own development prospects and stimulate inter-organisational collaboration – regional development theory has undergone a paradigm shift from an exogenous intervention focus to an endogenous, relational network one (Vasquez-Barguero, 2010). As such, the trend for regions is not ‘business as usual’ but rather a need for shared understanding of what comes next (OECD, 2012).
Regional policy initiatives include the building of clusters, cooperatives and networks based on embedded competencies and social structures. The focus on collaboration suggests a different way of working which, in theory, changes the regional development landscape and improves regional outcomes. While regional development is presumably anchored in endogenous capacities, social, and institutional relationships within a region, in a global economy we cannot disregard innovation and knowledge sharing via exogenous influences such as extra-regional and global internet networks (Braun, 2003) and the question arises how we measure endogenous development.
Despite the popularity of a collaborative regional development agenda with academics and international policy makers (APEC 2011, OECD 2012), there are limitations vis-à-vis on-the-ground implementation. Evaluation models associated with regional programs and policies remain siloed and anchored in GDP, export, growth models and traditional quantitative statistical and econometric analysis methods, which policy makers continue to rely on to make substantive program and policy changes. If the purpose of evaluation is to inform praxis, then measuring regional development outcomes needs to become more wide-ranging. This seminar argues that in the knowledge economy era more comprehensive regional development evaluation methods are required across systems. It argues that limits to current economic models ignore a range of capitals and knowledge sharing benefits/costs. Building on the 5-capitals framework (Porritt, 2005), this seminar proposes that adopting more wide-ranging evaluation methods contribute to regional resilience as they provide timely alerts for regions in terms of opportunities and/or signs of inefficiencies. By adopting broader regional development evaluation criteria, government, industry and academia have the opportunity to collaboratively move towards an evidence-based regional development model.

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