ABSTRACT
As has been presented in the introduction of this book, any territory that wants to develop a strategy has to work on the ‘what for’, or the objectives of development of the territory, the ‘what’, or the content of the strategy, and the ‘how’, or the process of strategy formation. The ‘what for’ has been treated in the introductory chapter and is reflected upon in several of the subsequent chapters. Analysis of the ‘how’ is provided in chapter 4 and then deepened in the cases of Oresund, Rafaela and the Okanagan (chapters 9 to 11) in particular. This chapter, alongside the next one by Christian Ketels, deals with the ‘what’. While both are inspired by how Michael Porter (and, more broadly, the so-called positioning school of strategic management) conceptualises the strategy of a firm, their roots in fundamentally different literatures complement each other. Building on Navarro et al. (2012, 2014) and Aranguren et al. (2012), and rooted in literature on scientific and technological (S&T) policy, on economic development, on economic geography and on innovation systems, this chapter develops analysis around the following five questions that should be answered by the ‘what’ of a territorial strategy.
What are the main economic activities (industries or clusters) or scientific and technological fields in which the territory is meant to excel?
What are the unique assets or resources that the territory must possess or develop in order to succeed in those activities and scientific-technological fields?
What are the targeted actors of that strategy and the actors by means of which the strategy will be carried out?
What relationships is the territory developing with other territories and external agents?
What kind of internal articulation is sought in the territory?
