Upscaling Associational Governance: Startups, Scaleups, and the Politics of Systemic Change

• In Event: Economic Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 9: Industrial Changes and Employment

Abstract

How do countries enter new, high-technology industries? Comparative political economists have historically focused on national institutions (Hall and Soskice 2001; Hassel and Palier 2021) or innovation policies (Breznitz 2007; Weiss 2014). The literature on regional studies, by contrast, has privileged local conditions as regional leaders draw on bridging or intermediary institutions to support and scale new business models (Feldman, Francis, and Bercovitz 2005; Powell, Packalen, and Whittington 2012; Storper et al. 2015). Tracing the growth of entrepreneurial activity in Canada, a country that has struggled to scale new high-technology enterprises and high tech industry more generally, this paper argues that both accounts are incomplete. Drawing on case studies of Waterloo, Toronto, and Ottawa, we demonstrate how Regional Innovation Centres created “protective space” for entrepreneurial startups. Comparing interview data from startups and scaling firms, however, the paper illustrates how these same regional innovation centres not only failed to tackle systemic barriers to scaling high-technology enterprises but, in several ways, made this problem even worse. To the extent that we observe institutional reform, this was precipitated by a very different set of national associations, most notably the Council of Canadian Innovators. In bridging the literature on comparative political economy and regional studies in this way, we not only highlight the power and limits of local agency (Grillitsch and Sotarauta 2020), but also, demonstrate how associational governance must evolve over time as industries mature. As a first step in theorizing this process, we conclude by identifying three strategies by which entrepreneurs have tried to upscale local industrial networks into national-level associations.

Authors

• Darius Ornston, University of Toronto

• Travis Southin, The Transition Accelerator