Explaining Path Creation - An agency approach in regarding the path creation of artificial intelligence in the federal state of Saarland, Germany

Abstract

The question of how and why regions develop the way they do has been occupying geogra-phers for a long time. The evolutionary economic geography introduced the idea of paths to explain the development of a region. A path includes the development of specific industries, or regional specializations. Within this idea a region is developing along a certain path that is as-sumed to depend on previous events and decisions of the past. The inclusion of time in combi-nation with the notion of a path depending development leads to the question of how a path can come into being. Descriptions of the structure of a region have been able to partly explain its development but could not explain why regions with a similar structure develop differently. Because of this circumstance the idea of agency has been introduced. It regards the actions of actors and how those actions can change the development of a region. But how those actions create a new path remained unclear so far. This research tries to solve this question. To do so, the trinity of change framework of Grillitsch and Sotarauta (2019) which includes the three change agencies of innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship, regional leader-ship and the regional opportunity space is used to explain the influence of actors on the path creation process on the case of the path of artificial intelligence (AI) in the federal state of Saar-land, Germany. The research utilizes 25 semi-structured interviews that have been gathered in the region to shed light on its path creation process. As a result, three different episodes within the path creation process have been found that include actions of increasing collaboration in between companies, fostering the regional start-up development and informing regional compa-nies about the advantages of AI. The research shows that the path is implemented by the active use of the technology by companies and start-ups. Furthermore, it is found that the efforts of other actors do make the use of the technology possible, as they create the suitable environment to use the technology. Moreover, it is shown that it is important for an understanding of the path creation process to closer examine the interaction between the agency of actors and the structure and the region. Lastly, it is shown, that the regional path creation process cannot be performed by a single actor but needs the support of different actor groups.