ABSTRACT
The application of the concept of routine to economic geography is an important step in integrating business organization into studies of regional economic adaptation. The chapter explores industrial renewal and resiliency processes with the aid of a historical database of high-tech companies of a sub-region in Massachusetts first dominated by textiles and later minicomputers. It provides an exploration of specialization dynamics using the high-tech companies of the Lowell area as an industrial laboratory. A dynamic Penrosian capabilities perspective focuses attention on dynamic specialization processes by which new firms, sectors, industries, or clusters emerge and evolve. It implies that the long-standing debate has been misguided: specialization and diversification are different parts of a single process. The chapter presents a research methodology which is based on the proposition that the existence of a distinctive regional technological capability gives local firms a competitive advantage.
