The “concept of regional competitiveness” means different things to different people. Businesspeople use the concept to understand economic and business conditions. Multi-laterals organizations use it to increase competition. Government officials and policymakers use it to benchmark the performance of policy stimulus.
Policymakers and state officials produce the highest number of regional competitiveness reports, which often encourage best practices guidelines for businesses. However, regional competitiveness reporting has become more expansive as academics, researchers, and businesspeople have embraced the framework.
Today, most regional competitiveness studies and resultant reports try to isolate factors that are either positive or negative in terms of economic growth. Often, businesspeople may find this broad framework helpful, but note that a vast majority of the information does not pertain directly to a business’ goals or actual conditions on-the-ground. Therefore, businesspeople increasingly use regional competitiveness studies as one of many tool when making decisions about investments.
The Connectivity of Framework
The regional competitiveness framework is most widely used by multilateral organizations to assess the performance of policies in economies across the world.
While regional competitiveness studies are arguably more useful for large multinational companies that will have more touch-points with national and local government; but small and medium sized businesses may also use it in the early stages of their decision-making process.
This helps multi-laterals organizations advocate successful economic strategies and assess long-term economic risks and opportunities across varied economies. However, regional competitiveness has become a more important concept for government
Increasingly, state and local governments use regional competitiveness frameworks for policymaking and develop strategies for resource allocation, and showcase the ability of a province, state, or other administrative unit to provide attractive business environment for investors – both domestic and international. Accordingly, businesspeople can use the same regional competitiveness frameworks to learn about their potential touch-points with a investment region and it’s governance by which affects conditions that may impact business growth prospectus.