https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4764-6867
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Abstract
The development of new industries in peripheral regions has gained renewed attention recently. Yet, the processes through which peripheral regions can mobilize external resources and capabilities, and turn them into locally sticky resources for structural change and longer-term economic prosperity, have not been sufficiently conceptualized. This article proposes anchoring-based regional system building as a third route, which stands between conventional globalist and regionalist approaches. Based on a case study of the emergence of a globally leading electric vehicle battery industry in Ningde, China, the article explores in depth the system resource-mobilization processes and dynamic capabilities by anchor tenants and regional stakeholders that allow peripheral regions to make long jumps in the product space. We show that if the anchoring process is smartly managed, developing emerging industries in peripheral contexts is not necessarily a casino strategy but can be a strategic approach for quickly and deeply transforming the industrial fabric of regional economies.
Acknowledgments
The corresponding author Zhen Yu acknowledges the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant 42301188. Huiwen Gong acknowledges financial support from Marie-Curie Standard Individual Fellowship, Grant 8946063. We are grateful to Jim Murphy and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Incorporating all sorts of knowledge-exploration (innovation) and knowledge-exploitation (production) activities.
2 It was attracted to Ningde already in 2008 but remained largely isolated from battery-related activities.