The Oxford Handbook of Spatial Diversity and Business Economics provides academics, researchers, and advanced students in various disciplines - such as business, economics, and geography - with an overview of the role of diversity in modern advanced economies. For a long time, research from different areas has suggested that diversity is a critical factor in creativity, knowledge generation, innovation, and entrepreneurship at the level of organizations, cities, regions, and whole countries. The chapters in this handbook deal with some of these issues in different ways and add to the existing knowledge on the role of diversity for various economic phenomena. The 16 chapters are organized into the following sections: 1) Diversity and place development: theory and policy development, 2) Workforce and labour market diversity, 3) Diversity and entrepreneurship, and 4) Regional diversity, innovation, and productivity. Furthermore, the introductory chapter of the book provides an overview of some of the main arguments on diversity in theoretical as well as empirical literature that puts the chapter contributions in context.
Edited by:
Martin Andersson (Professor of Industrial Economics Professor of Industrial Economics Blekinge Institute of Technology),
Charlie Karlsson (Professor of the Economics of Technological Change,
Professor of the Economics of Technological Change,
Jönköping International Business School),
Sofia Wixe (Associate Professor in Economics,
Associate Professor in Economics,
Jönköping International Business School),
Martin Andersson (Professor of Industrial Economics,
Professor of Industrial Economics,
Blekinge Institute of Technology),
Charlie Karlsson (Professor of the Economics of Technological Change,
Professor of the Economics of Technological Change,
Jönköping International Business School)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 246mm,
Width: 171mm,
ISBN: 9780198866190
ISBN 10: 0198866194
Series: Oxford Handbooks
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 31 July 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Introducing the topic of diversity: creativity, knowledge production, innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth Diversity and place development: theory development 1: Bart Nooteboom: Cognitive distance, diversity, focus, and trust in geography 2: Ron Boschma: Designing smart specialization policy: relatedness, unrelatedness, or what? 3: David B. Audretsch: Democracy and the strategic management of place 4: Philip Cooke: Translating specialist versus diversified business models into spatial planning? Dark limitations and lighter inspirations Workforce and labour market diversity 5: Mikaela Backman and Stephan Brunow: Age diversity in firms and its relation to wages: evidence from Germany 6: Christian R. Østergaard and Bram Timmermans: Workplace diversity and innovation performance: current state of affairs and future directions 7: Oskar Jost, Holger Seibert, and Mirko Wesling: 'Demographic Tailwind' from East Germany? How apprenticeship opportunities of foreign youth in West Germany depend on East German apprentices 8: Tom Broekel, Rune Dahl Fitjar, and Silje Haus-Reve: Diversity, complexity, or the relatedness of occupations: what drives industrial and regional development? Diversity and entrepreneurship 9: Ross Brown and Augusto Rocha: Analysing diversity in entrepreneurial finance across entrepreneurial ecosystems 10: Alessandra Colombelli, Anna D'Ambrosio, and Valentina Meliciani: Explaining spatial diversity in entrepreneurship: the role of knowledge and cultural diversity 11: Julian Waters-Lynch and Sam Tavassoli: Collaborative work spaces, diversity, and regional entrepreneurship growth: a conceptual review 12: Ram Mudambi and Agnieszka Nowinska: Triggered explorers and entrepreneurial embedded expanders: multiple paths to spatial expansion by service intermediaries Regional diversity, innovation, and productivity 13: Annekatrin Niebuhr and Jan Cornelius Peters: Regional cultural diversity and firm innovation - important effects of heterogeneity or merely sorting? 14: Roberto Basile, Gloria Cicerone: Diversity and spatial productivity growth 15: Daniël Speldekamp, Joris Knoben, and Frank van Oort: More ways to Rome: the agglomeration and firm productivity relationship through a configurational lens 16: Giulio Cainelli, and Roberto Ganau: Spatial diversity, firm heterogeneity, and economic performance
Martin Andersson is Professor of Industrial Economics at Blekinge Institute of Technology and Professor of Innovation Studies at CIRCLE, Lund University. He is also at the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum in Stockholm and affiliated researcher to the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN). His research focuses on industrial dynamics, innovation, and urban and regional economics. Charlie Karlsson is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping and Professor Emeritus of Industrial Economics at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona. Sofia Wixe is Associate Professor of Economics at Jönköping International Business School and researcher at the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Spatial Economics (CEnSE).
