The Dynamic Value of China’s High-Tech Zones: Direct and Indirect Influence on Urban Ecological Innovation

China’s High-tech Industrial Development Zones (HTZ) are industrial agglomeration areas established by the local government to foster economic innovation. As springboards for cities to implement innovation-driven development strategies, HTZs have significant spillover and driving effects on urban ecological innovation. Based on panel data taken from 215 cities between 2003 and 2016, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of HTZ construction and its mechanisms as they pertain to urban ecological innovation. This analysis is framed by the double difference model and the intermediary effect model. It found that HTZ construction can effectively enhance urban ecological innovation, and formidably promote ecological innovation in central and eastern cities, as well as cities with superior scientific and educational resources. The intermediary mechanism analysis revealed that HTZs result in a policy depression effect, which may promote the agglomeration of urban innovation factors (including high-quality talents and investment), thereby bolstering urban ecological innovation. Moreover, HTZs’ investment agglomeration effect is primarily responsible for driving urban ecological innovation. Indeed, the HTZ construction may not only promote the local ecological innovation, but also have a significant spillover effect on the ecological innovation activities of other cities in the province.

Business model as an innovation

Business model is the way in which an organization develops relationships with their market environment and converts products into cashflow. The chapter focuses on business model as a type of economic innovation. This chapter provides a case study on CD Projekt Red company, the publisher of the Witcher games series. The case of the game covers three types of innovations, i.e., business model, product performance and customer engagement, and is an example of multidimensional innovation process. The case is related to both innovation types: business models and customer experience ones. The aim of this chapter is to diagnose business model innovations on the basis of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt game created by CD Projekt Red.

INOVAÇÃO ECONÔMICA EM PERSPECTIVA: UM OLHAR SOCIOLÓGICO NO CAMPO DOS INNOVATION STUDIES ECONOMIC INNOVATION IN PERSPECTIVE: A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW IN THE FIELD OF INNOVATION STUDIES

Resenha sobre o livro Sociologia dell’innovazione economica do autor Francesco Ramella.

Regional development potentials of Industry 4.0: Open data indicators of the Industry 4.0+ model

This paper aims to identify the regional potential of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). Although the regional background of a company significantly determines how the concept of I4.0 can be introduced, the regional aspects of digital transformation are often neglected with regard to the analysis of I4.0 readiness. Based on the analysis of the I4.0 readiness models, the external regional success factors of the implementation of I4.0 solutions are determined. An I4.0+ (regional Industry 4.0) readiness model, a specific indicator system is developed to foster medium-term regional I4.0 readiness analysis and foresight planning. The indicator system is based on three types of data sources: (1) open governmental data; (2) alternative metrics like the number of I4.0-related publications and patent applications; and (3) the number of news stories related to economic and industrial development. The indicators are aggregated to the statistical regions (NUTS 2), and their relationships analyzed using the Sum of Ranking Differences (SRD) and Promethee II methods. The developed I4.0+ readiness index correlates with regional economic, innovation and competitiveness indexes, which indicates the importance of boosting regional I4.0 readiness.

Research under the GDPR – a level playing field for public and private sector research?

Scientific research is indispensable inter alia in order to treat harmful diseases, address societal challenges and foster economic innovation. Such research is not the domain of a single type of organization but can be conducted by a range of different entities in both the public and private sectors. Given that the use of personal data may be indispensable for many forms of research, the data protection framework will play an important role in determining not only what types of research may occur but also which types of actors may carry it out. This article looks at the role the EU’s General Data Regulation plays in determining which types of actors can conduct research with personal data. In doing so it focuses on the various legal bases that are available and attempts to discern whether the GDPR can be said to favour research in either the public or private domains. As this article explains, the picture is nuanced, with either type of research actor enjoying advantages and disadvantages in specific contexts.

Innovations and Economic Output Scale with Social Interactions in the Workforce

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 fundamentally changed the way we interact with and engage in commerce. Social distancing and stay-at-home orders leave businesses and cities wondering how future economic activity moves forward. The reduction in face-to-face interactions creates an impetus to understand how social interactivity influences economic efficiency and rates of innovation. Here, we create a measure of the degree to which a workforce engages in social interactions, analyzing its relationships to economic innovation and efficiency. We do this by decomposing U.S. occupations into individual work activities, determining which of those activities are associated with face-to-face interactions. We then re-aggregate the labor forces of U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) into a metric of urban social interactiveness. Using a novel measure of urbanized area, we then calculate each MSA’s density of social work activities. We find that our metric of urban socialness is positively correlated with a city’s per worker patent production. Furthermore, we use our set of social work activities to reaggregate the workforces of U.S. industries into a metric of industry social interactivness, finding that this measure scales superlinearly with an industry’s per worker GDP. Together, the results suggest that social interaction among workers is an important driver of both a city’s rate of invention and an industry’s economic efficiency. Finally, we briefly highlight analogies between cities and stars and discuss their potential to guide further research, vis-à-vis the density of social interactions “igniting” a city or industry.

Has “The Belt and Road” initiative promoted regional economic growth and economic innovation?

The article regards “The Belt and Road” initiative as a quasi-natural experiment. Based on the county panel data from 1999 to 2017, difference-in-differences model (DID) is used to examine the impact of the “The Belt and Road” initiative on regional economic growth and economic innovation. The study found that the “The Belt and Road” initiative can significantly increase the economic growth and innovation of the region. Through the placebo test and the robustness test, it shows good policy uniqueness characteristics. The article further analyzes the heterogeneity of the initiative. The study found that the initiative has more obvious economic growth and innovation in the central region.

Research on the Main Body of Rural Economic Innovation Based on the Perspective of Public Policy

Migrant workers, college students, urban workers, entrepreneurs and technical personnel who love agriculture and are willing to return to countryside are the main body of rural economic innovation. They are a new driving force for promoting the development of agricultural and rural economy and solving the problems of agriculture, rural areas and peasants. The government has issued several policies to encourage these people to start businesses in countryside. However, whether the policy measures have achieved the expected policy objectives and whether they can effectively promote rural economic innovation are a question worth discussing. Taking the case Han chuan City of Hubei Province as an example, this paper uses field study to show the characteristics of the main body of rural economic innovation and explore the practical effects and existing problems of policies for promoting rural economic innovation. The results show that the multiplier effect of the main body of rural economic innovation has not really been played out. The main reasons include the limitation of policy making, inadequacy implementation of policy and insufficient incentives. Finally, it is concluded that the government should strengthen the training of entrepreneurial farmers, create a favourable industrial and policy environment and encourage high level and highly skilled personnel to come to countryside.