Related and unrelated variety as regional drivers of enterprise productivity and innovation: A multilevel study

Abstract

We conduct multilevel analyses of Norwegian data and find that related industrial variety is a positive regional driver of enterprise innovation. Unrelated variety is a negative regional driver of enterprise productivity. This implies that regions with high levels of related variety and low levels of unrelated variety optimize enterprise performance. We argue that regional specialization is a two-dimensional construct inversely associated with related and unrelated variety. Thus, a specialized region (low in unrelated variety) is in fact a driver of enterprise productivity. In addition, we find that population density is another regional driver of enterprise productivity.