Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 10/5/2007
Competency Based Regional Growth Strategies: Creating Value in a Digital Global Age
September 2007
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract
The policy objective for governments is classic and enduring: sustain the growth of employment and productivity to assure expanding real incomes of the citizens. Success requires that “under free and fair market conditions, the community (firms and populace) can produce goods and services that meet the test of international markets while simultaneously expanding the real income of its citizens.”5 Yet, the logic of competition and value creation in global markets has evolved. Consequently, old strategies of simply supporting the competitiveness of particular national flag firms or chasing smokestacks are clearly obsolete, but merely investing in R&D or education is not sufficient, and doing nothing is a formula for decline. Regions have to conceive new strategies to find distinctive advantages to support employment and productive activity. Those strategies will need to target competencies, not particular firms or specific sectors. Our argument begins by considering the basic shifts in global markets that are altering the logic of value creation for firms; it then considers how these market shifts alter the policy choices for places and makes competency domains a necessary foundation of policy analysis.
