Reconsidering regional structural conditions for industrial renewal

This article develops a more comprehensive understanding of innovation-based renewal of industries from a structural perspective. Arguably, established perspectives offer rather simplistic views, portraying structures as either enabling or constraining for certain forms of regional industrial change. Inspired by work in organizational institutionalism on ‘institutional infrastructures’, this article focuses on the degree of elaboration and coherence as decisive features of regional structural conditions. Arguably, this conceptual lens allows for a better understanding of the potentials and limitations for industrial change entailed in different structural configurations. Empirically, we investigate renewal processes in traditional automotive regions in Austria and Sweden.