Conference paper on growth and decline in the local food industry
In June, three of the project members presented a paper on entrepreneurship and regional innovation systems at the 18th Academy of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Knowledge Conference. Among other things, the study highlights the importance of local cooperation built on trust to overcome challenges.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Innovation, knowledge and digitalisation: Building trust to face today’s challenges”. Paulina Rytkönen, Wilhelm Skoglund and Daniel Laven, in cooperation with professor Pejvak Oghazi, Södertörn University, presented the paper “Breaking new ground, catching up and falling behind – growth and decline in the local food industry.”
This study attempts to understand the underlying forces behind economic growth and decline within the local food system. The study combines elements of regional innovation systems, rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship context theory to highlight the differences between different branches within the local food system. The study focuses on industrial characteristics, including regional industrial resources, embeddedness in local resources and labour endowments, innovations, the creation of entrepreneurial culture, utilisation of regional assets and the role of regional links in the entrepreneurial process.
The research approach is based on a comparative, qualitative approach using two cases, for example small-scale dairies and craft breweries in Jämtland, Sweden. This is a total population study, based on interviews with representatives of each sector, conducted during a period of ten years, with recently conducted follow-up interviews. In addition, data includes information about major firm events, such as start-ups, exits, annual turnover, corporate form, owner, number of employees, and other major firm events found in public records.
Results indicate that analysing sectoral development within the local food industry is a fruitful avenue for understanding sectoral development and sectoral decline at the regional level. A key finding is that the presence of regional knowledge brokers and a regional hub that supports coordination of resources and facilitates the emergence of an entrepreneurial sectoral culture in the region is quite important for some sectors. However, gaps, shortcomings and challenges can be bridged through the establishment of a business organization and local cooperation built on trust. Moreover, social capital is, in all cases, essential for sectoral development and for the articulation of a regional innovation system within the local food industry.