Jun Suzuki

Regional development and innovation are often studied in the context of agglomeration economies, leading to a perception bias regarding the virtues of cities. Recent work on interregional connectivity has explored alternative mechanisms for economic growth, such as borrowed size and regional embeddedness, but there are limited studies examining these in the context of peripheries. The paper addresses this by examining the spatial relations of industry, commuting and agglomeration to innovation in Japan peripheries, finding dynamics between and within communities vary in how these factors increase innovation. Such understandings are critical in policy redressing core–periphery imbalances and industry competitiveness.

Despite the importance of university-industry collaboration, issues pertaining to the characteristics of collaborating firms, their modes of interaction, and the relationship between these modes and outcomes are not well-researched. The impact of country's development on these issues is also unclear. This case study examines Japan and Thailand—respectively representing developed and developing countries—and features the following key findings: 1) the characteristics of firms affect modes, with large Japanese firms being more collaborative with universities, whereas Thai SMEs significantly collaborate more with universities; 2) the relationship between modes in Thai firms is stronger than those of Japanese firms because in Thailand, perhaps due to weak technological capacity, R&D collaboration is conducted alongside university consultancy services; and 3) in Japan, R&D and human resource development collaboration lead to product innovation, whereas different outcomes are expected from different modes in Thailand. Apparently, trivial informal collaborations do have significant impact on innovation.