Firm interactions and potential ecosystems: a bottom-up approach to territorial network analysis

The concept of ecosystem has gained significant traction, both in academic and policy domains. However, most of the literature adopts given spatial scales, mostly regional statistical units, and then investigates the extent to which those places exhibit ecosystem features. To contribute overcoming this limit, this paper proposes a bottom-up methodology to identify ‘potential ecosystems’, i.e., clusters of local labour systems aggregated on the basis of firm interactions and territorial networks. The methodology is illustrated and validated with Italian data where identified ‘potential ecosystems’ are shown to exhibit several of the features that are expected in actual ecosystems. This methodological innovation could provide a support to evidence-based and place-targeted regional policy, e.g., better selecting areas for innovation measures and providing tailored innovation strategies.