Quality and Regional Competitiveness

Abstract

Recent literature on competitiveness has focused on innovation and industrial dynamics. In this paper it is argued that innovation is not enough when competing on global markets, at least in certain types of industries where performance, standards, and perceptions of the product are at the forefront. In addition to existing theory, we focus on the role of ‘quality’ in creating and sustaining regional competitive advantage. A theoretical framework for identifying and analyzing processes creating and recreating understandings, perceptions, and experiences of quality, that is, a quality promise, is presented. In the framework, the quality process is divided into three dimensions, labelled performance, projection, and protection. Regional competitiveness is arguably achieved when: (a) a good or a service is well represented in one or more of the quality dimensions; (b) quality perception and knowledge permeate all actors and their activities and are inherent throughout the value chain; and (c) space is an integral part of these processes in that it facilitates (i) localized learning/localization economies, and (ii) place-based branding. It is argued that ‘quality’ should be viewed as deeply embedded in space and that quality processes have both homogeneous and heterogeneous characteristics.