REASONS FOR THE GENESIS OF HIGH-TECH REGIONS - THEORETICAL EXPLANATION AND EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE

Since the beginning of the eighties, regional technology and developme nt policies in industrialized countries have pursued, among other thin gs, the goal of attracting and supporting high-tech industries. Very o ften high-tech regions, such as legendary Silicon Valley, Calif., or R oute 128, Mass., served as models. But there are high-tech regions in other industrialized countries, too. This paper analyses the reasons f or the genesis of seven high-tech regions in Germany (Munich), France (Grenoble); Great Britain ('Western Crescent' west oi London, Cambridg eshire), Japan (Kyushu) and the U.S.A. ('Silicon Valley', 'Research Tr iangle'). These reasons will be set against some of the most popular t heories claiming to explain technology-based regional growth. None of the theoretical approaches are suitable to help explain unambiguously the causes of the development of individuals, let alone all of the hig h-tech regions discussed here. Each one has specific strengths and wea knesses. An 'eclectic' theory, which combines convincing aspects of th e above-mentioned theories, may offer the best approach to the problem . One element of such an eclectic approach should be governments' (imp licit or explicit) influence on high-tech regions, which was not suffi ciently considered by the theories discussed above. The applicability of a revised version of Porter's (1990) system of determinants of nati onal competitiveness to high-tech regions is stressed. Copyright (C) 1 996 Elsevier Science Ltd