Abstract

Two selected articles for weekly discussion are De Propris, L., et al. (2021)’s Pathways of regional transformation and Industry 4.0 as main reading material and Wong, C. Y., et al.  (2018)’s Knowledge structures of city innovation systems: Singapore and Hong Kong as supplementary material.

De Propris, L., et al. (2021)’s Pathways of regional transformation and Industry 4.0, the authors examined the impact of the technological changes on the regional economies brought by fourth industry revolution on the local industrial system with the framework of the extended Multiple Layer Perspective (MLP) in place-based dimension (landscape, regime and niches).The transformation ability of the local industrial system were based on three capabilities: innovation capabilities, docking capabilities and translational capabilities. Using these three capabilities, the authors identified four transformative paths: endogenous transformative path, hyper-transformative path, importation transformative path and regional obsolescence path in order to explain technological transformation on the local industrial system. The author emphasizes the local system are not limited to a particular pathway.

Wong, C. Y., et al.  (2018)’s Knowledge structures of city innovation systems: Singapore and Hong Kong, seeks to explain the knowledge structures of the city innovation systems of Hong Kong and and examine the dynamics of these two cities in knowledge production, networks and features industrial economic system in these two cities. In this article, MLP has been used as a narrative approach to discuss the city innovation system of Hong Kong and Singapore. The authors stressed that the main focus of the article will look at the interrelated dimension of the city (regime) and technology levels (niches).

The articles above borrowed the framework of MLP, De Propris, L., et al. (2021) mentioned MPL in place-based dimension: landscape, regime and niches. De Propris, L., et al. (2021) postulated that the niches could be transferable knowledge that has the potential to be radical innovation and could be landed and applied on varied location. The ability of industrial local systems in regimes to transform relies on three capabilities such as: innovation capabilities, docking capabilities and translation capabilities.

In second article, Wong, C. Y., et al.  (2018) mentioned MPL in three levels: the context levels, the technology levels, and the city level. The authors narrowed down the scope to the city levels and technology levels to examine the city dynamics in the process of knowledge production, and network between firms, public research institute and universities the technological industrial system. Wong, C. Y., et al.  (2018) mentioned that the innovation actors (UIG), where University and PRIs played the roles in generating knowledges the innovation system, whereas firms engage in the process of learning and accumulating knowledges.

Based on these two articles, the research gap was found since the study hardly emphasized on the importance of MLP place-based dimension. The innovation actors (UIG) should be concerned, especially in the city level (regime) the socio-technical meso scale which systems of firms, research and stakeholders operate and land in specific region places and city. The presenter assume that the innovation actors would affect the region’s capabilities (innovation capabilities, docking capabilities, and translational capabilities) in producing varied transformative paths for a region’s technological transformation. The presenter attempts to further examine to the interrelation of the innovation actors (UIG) and the transformation ability of local industrial system with MLP framework.