The sociocultural basis for innovation

Abstract

This chapter argues how economic behaviour in geography could be understood as historically anchored varieties of practice. Contemporary European patterns replicate deep anthropological dispositions as suggested by authors like Geert Hofstede and Emmanuel Todd, and substantiated by Duranton et al. (Types and the persistence of regional disparities in Europe. Economic Geography, 85(1), 23-47, 2009). Old, formative schemes are still operating and new institutional forms, be they cultural, economic or political, are conditioned by their mechanisms. This also goes for innovation. However, in the field of innovation policies, culturally explained variations, cleavages and mismatches are translated to a different cognitive and rhetorical universe, where the problems to be addressed are assessed on a systemically legitimated formula devoid of cultural references, and where it otherwise is difficult to ascertain whether the logics behind the problems are being passed on or lost in translation. Building on a culturally argued and regionally modified concept of Variety of Capitalism (VoC), I illustrate my point by a reanalysis of Norwegian patterns of innovation. I suggest that the country harbour at least three different regional VoC-types, each of which has its own hegemonic logic of innovation. The consequences for policy formation are important as national policy schemes often fail to recognise regional variations in institutional preconditions and capacities for policy absorption by neglecting culturally conditioned economic diversities.