14 Saint John, Nb. as an Emerging Local System of Innovation

Abstract

The literature on innovation systems points to the need to build up our inventory of case studies in order to understand the processes of innovation and regional clustering (de la Mothe and Paquet, 1997; Nordicity Group, 1996; Nelson, 1994). Such an exercise is required in order to capture the complexities of the economic growth process; understand discrepancies in economic performance across time and space, particularly given the impact of globalization on national and sub-national economies (on this issue, see Boyer and Drache, 1996); and help inform policy-makers in their endeavours to promote economic growth in general, and the process of economic diversification to a knowledge-based economy in particular. This is important in Canada given the nature of its political economy: a large, regionalised country with a relatively small population and whose economic development was based on staples exploitation. This has produced uneven economic growth and settlement patterns across space and over time.¹