Open Innovation, Product Development, and Inter-Company Relationships Within Regional Knowledge Clusters

This paper deals with the broad concepts of innovation, inter-company relationship models, and regional knowledge systems as the focus of a scholarly enquiry into product development analysis. As research advances, it brings together the experience and theoretical interests of different social and economic environments. It is now necessary to identify an integrating framework that can clarify the state-of-the-art in the field and extend the boundaries of what is already a significant volume of literature. The authors have tried to describe the emerging phenomenon of close networks of cooperation at regional level that inspire and promote innovation. They are also concerned with the apparent paradox between, on the one side, the increasing openness of knowledge economies which seems to dissolve borders and, on the other, the new importance of place, particularly agglomerations. A useful background to the relevant issues is provided by helpful studies on the competitive advantages of spatial clustering, which minimizes distance-related transaction costs and maximizes flows of tacit knowledge and interactive learning effects.