Innovation, networks and plant location: Some evidence for Ireland

The influence of networks and location on plants' innovation activities has received considerable attention over the last decade. Most empirical work has centred on the hypotheses suggested by the urban hierarchy model. That is, that resource-rich, urban areas may be more conducive to product innova tion while more rural areas are better suited to process change. This paper differentiates among four types of areas in Ireland (Urban, Urban-peripher y, Rural, and Second Centre) and uses survey evidence to examine the impact of these different environments on plants' innovation activity. There are two main empirical conclusions. First, networks play an important part in d etermining the probability that plants will be innovative and, to a lesser extent, the success of that innovation. This provides some conditional supp ort for recent calls for network-based regional development strategies. Sec ondly, there is no evidence of any urban hierarchy of innovation in Ireland , suggesting that regional policy initiatives to disperse economic activity throughout Ireland are likely to have had little effect on innovation.