Dear All,

find attached and below a CfP for Special Session (SS12) + linked 
special issue on: SMEs/Family Businesses and Regional Development.

Submission of abstracts / papers and linked Special Issue

If you are interested in presenting a paper in this session, please 
submit your abstract of no more than 300 words via the RSAI platform 
(https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/2427/submitter) by February 23, 
2021.
http://regionalscience.org/2021worldcongress/uploads/1/7/2/5/17254170/ss12.pdf

This session is linked to a special issue in an impact-factor 
peer-reviewed journal, submitting authors will be informed about this 
possibility in detail. Authors only interested in the special issue are 
requested to directly contact the editors.

Perspectives on Urban Development, Planning, Place Leadership, Spatial 
Responsibilities while linking this topic are highly welcomed!

***********************************************************************************************************************************

RSAI—13th World Congress of the Regional Science Association 
International
“Smart Regions—Opportunities for Sustainable Development in the Digital 
Era”

May 25–28, 2021, Marrakesh, Morocco or/and Online

Special Session—SMEs/Family Businesses and Regional Development
(Themes of specific interest: RS01, RS09, RS10, RS11)

Lech Suwala (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)
Rodrigo Basco (American University of Sharjah, UAE)
Stefano Amato (IMT School for Advanced Studies, Italy)


Despite the importance of today’s big businesses, big data, and big 
transitions, there is still room to further
investigate small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the geographical 
spaces in which they dwell. Most SMEs
and family firms -or so-called “hidden champions”- are the backbones of 
most local and regional economies and
social development. SMEs and family firms comprise diverse types of 
businesses, from traditional century-old
Japanese dynasties, American family farms, and German Mittelstand to 
novel Shanghai and Silicon Valley elites.
At the same time, these businesses represent geographically uneven 
phenomena with regard to their distribution
across, their impact on, and their interactions with the local, 
regional, and (inter-)national levels and beyond.
While certain types of firms (e.g., startups, multi-national 
corporations) and processes (e.g., innovation,
entrepreneurship) have attracted much attention in regional science in 
the last decades, SMEs and family firms
have mostly been neglected in the fields of regional science and 
regional economics. Against this background,
the session “SMEs/Family Businesses and Regional Development” aims to 
open up a profound debate on this
often-neglected topic. We invite scholars from manifold disciplines, 
such as regional science, regional economics,
economic geography, family business, management, organization studies, 
and international business as well as
practitioners from diverse backgrounds to share their interest and to 
submit their research on SMEs/family firms
and regional development in the widest sense.

Our rationale is to continue with this debate—independent of 
methodological approach (quantitative or
qualitative)—on SMEs and/or family businesses in different spaces and on 
different scales. Conceptual,
empirical, and methodological papers might address, but are not limited 
to, the following:

• Conceptual and theoretical debates about the nature of SMEs/family 
firms and space (i.e., regional familiness,
spaces of familiness, family relatedness in cities and peripheries)
• SMEs/family firms and agglomeration (dis-)economies, proximities, 
externalities, and regional selfreinforcing
mechanisms
• The contributions (e.g., regional competitiveness) and impacts (e.g., 
productivity) of SMEs/family firms in
agglomerations and peripheries
• SMEs/family firms and regional contexts (e.g., social embeddedness, 
local networks)
• The regional expansion and internationalization of SMEs/family firms
• Peculiarities in the evolution and trajectories of SMEs/family firms 
(e.g., family/regional path dependence,
family/regional (un-)related variety, family/regional lock-in)
• SMEs/family firms and territorial innovation models (e.g., industrial 
districts, innovative milieus, business
clusters, territorial innovation systems [e.g., RIS, NIS], 
entrepreneurial ecosystems, etc.)
• SMEs/family firms and local/regional/national development policies and 
university-industry cooperation
• Issues of sustainable regional development, digitalization, green 
growth, and SMEs/family firms
• Place leadership or corporate urban/regional responsibility by 
SMEs/family firms
• SME-/family firm-specific issues (e.g., succession, governance, 
reputation, professionalization, etc.) from a
regional science perspective
• The role of SMEs/family firms in digitalization, smart regions, 
Industry 4.0 technologies, and platform-based
economies and the impact of spaces and scale
• The role of SMEs/family firms in value, commodity, and production 
chain approaches at the local (LVC,
LCC, LPN) and global levels (GVC, GCC, GPN)
• SMEs’/family firms’ contributions to regional resilience, 
vulnerability, and/or sovereignty.

***********************************************************************************************************************************

Best regards from Berlin and stay safe,
Lech

-- 
Prof. Dr. Lech Suwala
Professor in Urban and Regional Economics
Technische Universität Berlin
Institut für Stadt-und Regionalplanung
Hardenbergstr.40A / Sekr. B4 / Raum 208
10623 Berlin
Tel.       +49 30 314 28088
Tel. Sekr. +49 30 314 28089
Fax.       +49 30 314 28150

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https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lech_Suwala

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