
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY LAB
Department of Social Geography & Regional Development,
Faculty of Science, Charles University
We focus on theoretical and conceptual approaches to the study of economic geography and regional development, particularly in terms of global production networks, global value chains and regional innovation systems.
RESEARCH
Our main research fields



GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORKS
REGIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEMS
SMART SPECIALISATION
PEOPLE
Scientific Minds
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
J Blazek, A Lypianin (2023)
Journal of Economic Geography
This study investigates the decoupling of Ukrainian aerospace, defense and electro-engineering industries resulting from the Russian Crimean annexation in 2014. Conceptually, we contribute to global value chain/global production network research by developing the notion of geopolitical decoupling, thus augmenting the existing 2-fold typology. Moreover, the article elaborates a typology of recoupling. Empirically, we investigate patterns of decoupling from Russia and recoupling via alternative production networks as well as patterns of decoupling/recoupling according to the position of companies in the production hierarchy. We found a neat pattern of decoupling from Russia according to tier but profoundly different dynamics of recoupling with the European Union and Asia.
J Blazek, V Kadlec, V Kveton (2023)
European Planning Studies, 1-22
This paper aims to contribute to the study of agency in regional development first by elaborating a typology of organizational- and system-level agency constellations in regions. Second, the paper outlines the main individual and collective assets which influence the vigour and sophistication of organizational- and system-level agency and by specifying the main drivers upon which the exertion of usually more scarce system-level agency is contingent. Empirically, via 30 in-depth interviews, the role of agency is studied in a region with multiple disadvantages. Nevertheless, innovative endogenous companies exist in this region, and we examined their compensation and exploitation strategies aimed at eluding unfavourable regional assets and almost-missing system-level agency. Finally, we outline several potential avenues for transformation in the case study’s region.
J Blazek, V Kveton
Regional Studies, 1-16
This paper investigates the role of agency in regional industrial path development using an integrated framework that combines three recent conceptualizations of agency: (1) firm- and system-level agency; (2) trinity-of-change agency; and (3) reproductive and change agency. Our framework redefines firm- and system-level agency into organizational- and system-level agency to enable a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of the agency of various regional actors. Empirically, we contribute to the literature by analysing the evolutionary trajectories of two coal regions with vastly contrasting development dynamics. Our research primarily attributes these divergences to the substantial differences in the nature and vigour of system-level agency. However, our empirical research reveals that most actors exerted both organizational- and system-level agency, although at profoundly different intensities and scales.
V Kadlec, V Kveton, J Vlckova, J Blazek, P Horak (2023)
The Journal of Technology Transfer 48 (4), 1300-1326
The paper explains the association between research and development (R&D) offshoring and regional innovation performance. Drawing on selected literature from the intersection of economics, innovation studies, strategic management and economic geography, we explore how the rate of patent offshoring reflects regional performance as well as how an increased rate of offshoring affects regions. Our results show that less developed and less innovative regions have significantly higher rates of patent offshoring. In these regions, knowledge production (measured by patent activity) is almost exclusively under the control of foreign companies. Moreover, this 20-year pattern of patent offshoring clearly trends towards increasing the outflow of patents from less developed regions towards the headquarters of multinational companies. These trends testify to the swiftly increasing globalization of R&D and, more generally, the importance of international knowledge flows to the competitiveness of multinational companies in the current era. Second, advanced regions typified by a balanced mix of knowledge bases or by a strong analytical knowledge base tend to have a lower level of patent offshoring than less developed regions with a dominant synthetic knowledge base. Third, growing patent offshoring tends to be intertwined with higher patenting activity among domestic companies.
PUBLIC APPEARANCES
MEET US
May 28-29, 2020
Mladá Boleslav, Czechia
October 26-27, 2020
Aalborg, Denmark

CONTACT US
Department of Social Geography and Regional Development
Faculty of Science, Charles University
Albertov 6, Prague 2
128 43 Czechia