Simone Strambach | Philipps University Marburg (original) (raw)

Papers by Simone Strambach

Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, Apr 1, 2008

Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.

Management-Reihe Corporate Social Responsibility, 2017

Die Forschungszweige zu CSR und Tourismus haben sich weitestgehend getrennt voneinander entwickel... more Die Forschungszweige zu CSR und Tourismus haben sich weitestgehend getrennt voneinander entwickelt. Ein Grosteil der Literatur zu CSR bezieht sich auf Strategien von Unternehmen aus dem globalen Norden, wahrend kleine und mittelstandische Unternehmen (KMU) im globalen Suden bislang nur geringe Beachtung finden. In diesem Beitrag wird anhand der Fallstudie von „Buccaneers Lodge & Backpackers“ die komplexe Entstehung der CSR-Strategien von KMU im globalen Suden aus einer dynamischen und prozessorientierten Perspektive rekonstruiert. Deutlich werden vielfaltige Herausforderungen, die bei der Entwicklung und Durchfuhrung von CSR-Initiativen uberwunden werden mussen, jedoch auch die positiven Wirkungen, die sich uber die Zeit entfaltet haben. Der Beitrag hat das Ziel, tiefergehendes Wissen uber das gesellschaftliche Engagement von KMU im globalen Suden zu generieren sowie uber die Potenziale dieser Ansatze zur Forderung von nachhaltigen Entwicklungsprozessen im postapartheitlichen Sudafrika.

Abstract: KIBS research to date has been conducted mainly by taking an innovation perspective whe... more Abstract: KIBS research to date has been conducted mainly by taking an innovation perspective where an explicit focus on knowledge processes is not very well pronounced. The paper intends to make a conceptual contribution to a deeper understanding of the role of KIBS as an industry that produces, uses and transforms knowledge. It focuses on the knowledge dimension and uses evolutionary and organisation-based knowledge approaches to show that KIBS can be identified as drivers of knowledge dynamics in multilevel contexts. Both the specific characteristics of their composite knowledge products and the way these are produced are considered to be responsible for the unique way they foster knowledge dynamics in firm, sector and territorial contexts. By the application of different knowledge dimensions such as types of knowledge bases and domains mainly used to examine knowledge processes and innovation in industrial sectors, the specificities of KIBS to multilevel knowledge dynamics are a...

Geographische Zeitschrift, 2016

Standards and certification systems have gained importance in facilitating sustainable developmen... more Standards and certification systems have gained importance in facilitating sustainable development processes in global production and consumption networks. However, they are mainly developed in the Global North while actors from developing countries mostly remain passive standard takers. Currently, the majority of standards are primarily resource-oriented, while social criteria are less integrated. The result is a lack of acceptance due to low levels of embeddedness. Which requirements standards have to fulfill in order to facilitate a sustainable development is still widely unanswered. The paper intends to make mainly a conceptual contribution to the evolutionary trajectories of sustainable standards, which explicitly include the social dimension. Conceptually, neo-institutional approaches in organizational theory, focusing on institution building, and the research on innovation and knowledge dynamics are combined. Empirically, the evolutionary trajectory of the sustainability stan...

Contributions to Economics, 2002

Organisational innovations at the level of the firm are not a recent phenomenon. This can be seen... more Organisational innovations at the level of the firm are not a recent phenomenon. This can be seen from the broad scientific debate about Fordism and Taylorism and the large amount of research on the flexible specialisation of firms carried out since Piore and Sable (1984) first spoke about the Second Industrial Divide. Early work concentrated mainly on new organisational principles applied to production systems and processes which enable firms to exploit numerical and functional flexibility so that they can respond to changes in market and demand conditions.

Exploring Knowledge-Intensive Business Services

After some decades of international and interdisciplinary research on KIBS several organizational... more After some decades of international and interdisciplinary research on KIBS several organizational and spatial characteristics of this highly dynamic segment can be considered meanwhile as stylized facts. The pronounced segmentation of the KIBS sectors in few large, mainly multi-national corporations and a large part of small and micro businesses, also named a J-shaped industrial structure (Miles and Green, 2008, p. 13), is a common characteristic that remains stable over time. Obviously this segmentation reflects that scale advantages are so far not very prominent in the sector or at least difficult to reach. At the macro level the dynamic growth and the strong concentration pattern of KIBS in urban agglomeration areas are such structural features (Moulaert and Todtling, 1995; Keeble and Nachum, 2002; Strambach, 2010a; Toivonen, 2002; Wood, 2002b; Bryson and Daniels, 2007). Besides spatial concentration processes, the relatively unchanged country-specific and region-specific specialization patterns of KIBS sub-sectors, is another characteristic. These profiles point to the evolution of accumulated localized competences of KIBS influenced by their respective institutional environments. Not until recently the KIBS research noticed in more detail the importance of the institutional context in its influence on interaction relations and organizational forms of KIBS (Grimshaw and Miozzo, 2006).

Innovation Networks, 2001

The knowledge-intensive service industry is one of the most dynamic components of the service sec... more The knowledge-intensive service industry is one of the most dynamic components of the service sector in Europe and in most highly industrialised countries. This dynamic growth can be seen no longer as a simple outsourcing phenomenon. It is an reflection of deep changes in production and organisational structures and it shows the increasing linkages and networks between economic activities.

Platforms of Innovation

This ground-breaking book offers a coherent theoretical analysis of contemporary industrial knowl... more This ground-breaking book offers a coherent theoretical analysis of contemporary industrial knowledge flow dynamics. Furthermore, it advances wide-ranging and varied empirical findings from international comparative research which demonstrate that knowledge cross-pollination, often from industrially unrelated business sectors, is now commonplace in the economics of innovation. This, the authors argue, represents the rise of an externalized ‘matrix’ of knowledge flow dynamics among firms and industries. The book also examines related economic governance research that reveals the catalytic role that leading innovation policy agencies play in animating knowledge flow dynamics, particularly at the regional level. The chapters address various sectors including food and drink, biotechnology, ICT, new media, the automotive industry and tourism.

Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie, 2013

The starting point for this paper is a fundamental change currently occurring in the way innovati... more The starting point for this paper is a fundamental change currently occurring in the way innovation is organised in the developed countries: it tended to be centralised at or near headquarters but is now much more decentralised within the company. Equally if not more significant, innovation activities that used to be carried out inhouse by innovating firms themselves are carried out by independent suppliers of knowledge intensive business services, or are transferred to key suppliers. The question driving this paper is how this 'organisational decomposition of the innovation process' changes the global distribution of innovation of activities. Does it contribute to their global dispersal to the developing world or does it strengthen the existing concentration? Since this is uncharted territory the paper seeks guidance from theory and lays out an agenda for empirical research.

Vierteljahrshefte Zur Wirtschaftsforschung, 1997

In the globalizing process, the production of knowledge and the management of information gain in... more In the globalizing process, the production of knowledge and the management of information gain increasing strategic importance for the competitiveness of regions. Theoretical conceptions of the learning economy and the learning region emphasise that the capability to learn is crucial for the economic success of firms, regions and national economies. Given this background, the proposal will focus on the significance of knowledge?intensive business services for innovation and learning. So far, knowledge about innovative activities of service firms and their significance in the technological change is existent only to a low extent. For a long time, research concerning technological change as well as innovations focussed on the manufacturing industry and the development and transfer of technological knowledge. The dynamic growth of business?related services has now been documented in numerous studies not only in Germany, but also in other European countries. Their role in innovativeness...

By applying the evolutionary economic geography approach and focusing on the organizational dimen... more By applying the evolutionary economic geography approach and focusing on the organizational dimension of the knowledge-based theory of the firm the paper intends to make both a conceptual and an empirical contribution to understand the ways in which knowledge dynamics unfold in time and space and lead to innovative change. The article focuses on the connections of cumulative and combinatorial knowledge dynamics at the micro level of firms and other organizations. The empirical results base on the quantitative and qualitative meta-analysis of case studies in Europe that were obtained by the instrument of innovation biographies.

In recent years, innovation processes involve more heterogeneous actors inside and outside the fi... more In recent years, innovation processes involve more heterogeneous actors inside and outside the firm. Little is known however about the spatial impact of this organisational decomposition of innovation processes (ODIP): Does it lead to a geographical dispersion of innovation activities as well? Furthermore, which parts of the innovation process are carried out spatially or organisationally separated? To what extent are knowledge-creating activities subject to organisational decomposition? We propose the analytical ODIP framework which integrates research on innovation systems, global value chains and knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Thereby we provide a conceptual contribution to the debate on the globalisation of innovation in the identification of different modes of decomposed innovation processes by capturing the participating actors and their contribution in specific innovation events. The exploration of the spatial dimension of innovation processes in the software i...

While there has recently been an increased interest in urban and regional transitions to sustaina... more While there has recently been an increased interest in urban and regional transitions to sustainability, there are little profound insights about the emergence, design and enforcement of regional transition paths to sustainability (RTPS). The latter are characterized by organizational and institutional dynamics that affect multiple regimes and cannot fully be captured with the niche-regime categories of the multilevel perspective (MLP). This paper is therefore based on recent approaches from evolutionary economic geography (EEG) that focus on how actors at the micro- level use the plasticity of paths to enact change. The transition path and underlying micro-dynamics over more than 30 years in the Augsburg region revealed in an empirical study are visualized in the form of a transition topology. The results show that RTPS are not a determined process which follows a prescribed course of events from the beginning. Actors use the interpretative flexibility of institutions and establish...

The development of standards and certification programs in global tourism has gained importance i... more The development of standards and certification programs in global tourism has gained importance in consumption-production nexus. The paper is dealing with “Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa” (FTTSA), one of the first innovative service standards with a focus on the social dimension of sustainability. Until now, there has been little detailed exploration in the evolutionary trajectories of sustainable tourism standards from a knowledge-based perspective. This paper will contribute to a deeper understanding of the standard creation in global-local interaction processes over time and its impacts on the micro level of the firms. Conceptually it builds on two scientific debates the neoinstitutional approaches in organizational theory focussing on institution building and the research on innovation and knowledge dynamics. Empirically, it is based on 32 interviews conducted with different actor groups.