Regional industrial restructuring resulting from individual and system agency

The article discusses mechanisms and policy that stimulate regional economic restructuring. Economic restructuring is conceptualised through the notion of path development. The article distinguishes four types of path development: the extension and upgrading of existing regional industries are two types, diversification of existing industries and the creation of new industry paths are the two others and more substantial path developments. A main idea in the article is that new path development requires industry actors who initiate new firms or innovation activities in existing firms, i.e. firm level agency, but that restructuring also requires action by actors operating in the regional support system, i.e. system level agency. System level agency, understood as actions or intervention to transform regional innovation systems to better support economic restructuring, is particularly important for the two most 'radical' types of restructuring, i.e. path diversification and creation, and in regions with thin and specialised knowledge and industrial structure.