Regionalisation and sustainability in the field of industrial production

Regional business concepts are said to have huge potential to support sustainable development in industrialised countries (e.g. Stransfeld, 1999). However, whereas efforts have been made to implement regional concepts within agriculture and forestry, empirical findings show that regional concepts are only of minor importance to managers within industrial production (Rentz et al., 2000). Considering this situation, the aim of the present article is to explain why regional business concepts have rarely been implemented in the field of industrial production. Therefore, in the course of the present article, a raster for the identification of relevant barriers on a personal, enterprise, inter-firm and macro-economic level will be developed and applied. Subsequently, suggestions for a set of measures to overcome these barriers to regionalisation will be given. The results have been identified in the framework of a questionnaire to about 30 decision makers of industrial companies within research, a project promoted by the German Ministry of Education and Research.