COMPANY LIFE-HISTORY ANALYSIS AND TECHNOGENESIS - A SPATIAL VIEW

This article examines the relationship between innovation dynamics in individual companies and the urban environment. First, this theme is discussed theoretically, and an overview is given of major new insights in this field. Second, company history analysis is presented as a useful method for an empirical investigation of the long-term renewal of firms in a spatial context. Next, based on pilot studies, a set of important data and validity problems is discussed and empirically analyzed on the basis of a small sample. These studies show that companies may follow distinct development paths within a challenge-response framework, for example, incremental renewal or shockwise readjustment. Also, the pilot studies point to the influence of the urban environment on the renewal of firms.