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Technological Change, Innovation Infrastructure and Technology Transfer Networks

The economic competitiveness of regions in Europe is affected by fundamental changes in the worldwide division of labour, by a decrease and differentiation in demand and by technological and organizational innovation. This is of considerable concern to rural economic regions with ‘classical’ production patterns, which face major adjustment problems in order to meet these structural changes. One of the main ‘structural weaknesses’ in regional adjustment processes in rural regions lies in the lack of innovation capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of their economic development. Therefore, one of the most important tasks of regional and technology policies concerned with the development of peripheral rural regions is to provide an adequate innovation infrastructure to promote know-how and technology transfer and to enlarge the regional pool of knowledge. To formulate recommendations for these policies, the influence on firms' behaviour of innovation-oriented technology transfer networks, the existence of information deficiencies within the businesses of rural regions, and the role played by the institutions of knowledge and technology transfer in the rural regions must be investigated. Based on theoretical and empirical studies in Baden-Württemberg in 1993/94 the authors present a conceptual framework for technology transfer in rural regions.