Expanding Analyses of Path Creation: Interconnections between Territory and Technology

Abstract

Theoretically and conceptually, evolutionary economic geography has paid little attention to technological characteristics when explaining the emergence of new industries. Building on the literature on technological innovation systems, the article develops a framework for investigating interconnections between territorial dynamics and technological characteristics in path creation processes. The theoretical argument is operationalized in an analytical framework that is applied in empirical investigation of two green technologies and their linkages to the region of southwestern Norway, namely, carbon capture and storage and maritime battery technology. As illustrated by the empirical investigation, territorial dynamics or technological characteristics alone do not explain path creation. Rather, interconnections between the two and how interconnections play out in time and space are considered focal.