The Entrepreneur Rural Region: Competitiveness, Sustainability and Innovation
Regions are becoming global agents of development, overcoming in many dimensions the traditional perspective of the Nation State. Regions are getting more powerful and autonomous, are designing regional strategies adapted to their needs and potentialities, are promoting their assets and resources in the international sphere, are competing for investment, projects, highly qualified human resources, tourists, etc., and are using place marketing approaches to tell the world how good they are. Sustainability and innovation became main drivers in regional development models, being a kind of framework yin and yang of the regional competitiveness. Regions are becoming real entrepreneurs in the global arena. For example in the European Union context, Regions like Catalonia, West Midlands, Rhone Alps, Emilia-Romagna are emerging more and more as global players, taking on one side the advantages of being part of strong States like Spain, UK, France or Italy and on the other side they have a degree of autonomy and power that allows them to develop the best options in relation to their regional development needs. This is usually the case of winning Regions, more central and better connected (physically, digitally), with high levels of urbanization, economic performances, R&D investment, high-tech sectors, etc. usually used as the best case studies. Nevertheless, many other Regions, with more rural and peripheral characteristics are willing to develop similar approaches, adapted to their situation.There are many different realities of rural regions but in general they present a more peripheral position, with lower population densities, weaker economic development, worse connections, lower levels of human capital, low-tech sectors sometimes with lower productivity and profitability, etc. Agriculture and associated activities continues to be important but in different degrees of relevance for the regional development (sometimes is more important in an indirect perspective, linked with the maintenance of landscape and local populations, preservation of traditions, identity and culture and not that much in terms of employment or revenues-a more European perspective). On the other side, those regions usually presents advantages and potentialities related to the better environmental conditions, are associated with a more traditional way of life, are far away from the development urban hazards (pollution, traffic, fast-food meals) being attractive to different kinds of tourism (from more relaxed to more active / sportive; from natural to cultural; etc) and are the source of many high quality products (agro-food, wine, etc,). Territory is a factor of differentiation and on that way it can be a factor of attractiveness and competitiveness, being so important to have planning approaches that deals with the specific characteristics and dynamics of each territory. Improving the competitiveness factors of rural regions, through capacity building processes focused on drivers like Sustainability and innovation, can lead to the development of more entrepreneur rural regions.This paper will discuss the concept of entrepreneur rural regions as an approach focused on the improvement of the regional competitiveness factors. It will be presented the case study of Alentejo Region, in South of Portugal, that is trying to go from bread to brain, from a development model based on the land, on the agriculture and natural resources, to a new path of development where the knowledge and innovation are the new ground for prosperity. That does not mean the abandonment of the traditional sectors; it means the integration of knowledge-base approaches into the traditional sectors (through research, marketing, e-commerce, etc.). Today Alentejo presents in the European markets some high quality products like wine, olive oil, agro-food products. Even tourism is booming in the Region, trying to take advantage from the unspoiled natural areas and the growing international demands (especially coastal areas) and bringing in innovation (e.g. new products like eco-resorts, rural tourism, thematic routes, e-booking services, e-marketing, etc.) nevertheless raising worries and concerns about the increasing demand for land (urbanization) and natural resources (water, energy) in tourism development areas. If we need to have innovation on one side, we need to have the issues of sustainability on the other, as a way of balancing environmental and socio-economics aspects, safeguarding the quality of the products and on that way their competitiveness, Yin-novation and Yang-sustainability. The entrepreneur rural regions needs to achieve a complementary relation between those perspective and to reinforce some other fundamental dimensions like governance, leadership, human capital (education, qualifications), social capital (trust, community rules, bonds), leadership, etc. The case study of Alentejo will allow a better view over the concept of entrepreneurial region and its characteristics. It will also be possible to draw some lessons for regions that are trying to find its way through in rural and peripheral regions like Sichuan in P.R.China.
SMEs Strategy Capability Multi-dimension Model Dynamic Competition
Fernando Teigao dos Santos
PhD, Faculty of Science and Technology, Lisbon New University (FCT/UNL)1700-042, Lisbon, Portugal
国际会议
2007 International Conference on Dtrategic Management（2007年战略管理国际会议）
成都
英文
344-356
2007-04-19（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）