This paper will present different theories for restructuring economic activity connected to innovation and regional development with reference to maritime and marine sector. The purpose is to give insight into and understanding of the restructuring process going on in industrial sectors that compete in the international markets. The paper will present different theoretical approaches including structural theory as well as evolutionary and institutional theories within the subject of economic geography. While structural theories consider structural influences the main factors influencing regional development, the evolutionary or institutional theories consider actors and their roles in innovation processes responsible for the development. The structural theories originated during the seventies, and their main purpose was to explain the processes associated with global change and the relocation of industrial production to new developing/industrialised countries. These theories explained the local and regional processes by looking at them as results of capitalistically determined processes that took place outside the geographical area from which the industry either left or relocated to. The paper will discuss whether these structures and processes developed earlier can give insight into the processes going on today. Evolutionary, institutional economy is a theoretical approach in which you have to understand society and how it influences technology and competence to understand the development within the economy. Studies of innovative milieus are central to this approach. While structural theories consider development as governed from the outside, institutional evolutional theory involves the actors, or collectives of actors, and their abilities to influence the development through their reflexive actions and relations (within a network where thoughts and actions constantly evolve in an interactive and iterative process). instances the same, and they often make use of each others' know-how. The most active regions in fish farming are also the regions where we find the most active fishing milieus. They are part of the same production-systems as well as the same social networks. Most probably, these relations will be of more importance in the future, for instance connected to more industrialized production of equipment for the fish farming industry, developing the technology for fish farming further away from land and for instance new and more advanced methods for transporting fish or mussels alive. They could also contribute to further develop the technology for fish farming industries in other countries or to establish better transportation systems for transporting fish or mussels alive. One of the results of the globalisation process is that the Norwegian maritime industries try to be localised close to new markets in China. This may open for new possibilities for the maritime industry in Norway to cooperate with the fish farming industry in China, and to contribute to Chinese know-how in developing new forms of equipment.
