In June/July the Dep. of Economic Geography presented papers at four international conferences.
During the 22nd Uddevalla Symposium at Gran Sasso Sience Institute (GSSI) in L'Aquila, Italy, Tatjana Bennat and Rolf Sternberg reported in two presentations to paper sessions and one keynote speech about their latest research results. The first paper, jointly written with Rolf Sternberg, Tatjana Bennat focussed on practical barriers to combinatorial knowledge dynamics between different types of knowledge bases. One main result is that not only cognitive, institutional or organizational distance hamper the exchange but also practical barriers like financing, motivation or expected outcome were important. In her second presentation Tatjana Bennat presented a paper written together with Harm Alhusen (Universität Göttingen), dealing with the mechanism of integrating STI-knowledge and practices into a predominantly DUI-mode SME. Further the role of regional innovation consultancies was analyzed, concluding that simply the increase of technology transfer does not help as long as the absorptive capacity in SMEs is not improved at the same time. In his keynote speech Rolf Sternberg spoke about "Entrepreneurship and Geography - some thoughts about a complex relationship". He described the state-of-the-art on the interdependent relationship between spatial aspects and entrepreneurial activities, explained policy implications of this relationship and finally presented a research agenda.
Sebastian Losacker presented the results of a research article with Ingo Liefner at the annual conference of the Regional Studies Association (RSA Annual Conference) in Santiago de Compostela. In his presentation ‘Innovation in China: Does 'indigenous' mean closed?’ he analyzed the characteristics of open and closed innovation processes in Chinese mechanical engineering companies against the background of spatial proximity, Guanxi (trust) and DUI vs. STI modes.
Kerstin J. Schäfer participated in the annual conference of the Academy of International Business (AIB) in Copenhagen. She presented her dissertation proposal "Competitiveness through R&D internationalization - Patent data-based studies on a latecomer in the telecommunications industry" at the doctoral consortium of the conference. Further, she presented her paper "Beyond "learning-by-hiring" - The role of offshore experts in latecomer catching up", about the establishment of Huawei Technologies as a global player in the international telecommunications industry, in an interactive session.
Early July Rolf Sternberg participated in the Symposium "Temporal Dynamics in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems" in Schloss Herrenhausen/Hannover. This international event applied innovative formats (e.g. pitch-sessions and break-out sessions) and explored, supported by renowned entrepreneurship scholars like Maryann Feldman (Chapel Hill), Erik Stam (Utrecht) and Ben Spigel (Edingburgh) future research potentials in hot topic of regional Entrepreneurial Eco Systems. In his contribution entitled "Potentials of Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Entrepreneurial Ecosystems" Rolf Sternberg presented some ideas on the cooperation potentials within the Social Sciences.
