| Relational refers to a specific mode of economic coordination or governance based on strong, long-term, reciprocal relationships. Typically, these relationships are informal, face-to-face, collaborative and cooperative, characterized by the exchange of knowledge and a high degree of mutual trust. |
Dyer & Singh (1998Dyer, J. H., & Singh, H. (1998). The relational view: Cooperative strategy and sources of interorganizational competitive advantage. Academy of management review, 23(4), 660-679.); Capello & Faggian (2005Capello, R., & Faggian, A. (2005). Collective learning and relational capital in local innovation processes. Regional studies, 39(1), 75-87.); Jones, Hesterly & Borgatti (1997Jones, C., Hesterly, W. S., & Borgatti, S. P. (1997). A general theory of network governance: Exchange conditions and social mechanisms. Academy of management review, 22(4), 911-945.); Rutten (2004Rutten, R. (2004). Inter-firm knowledge creation: A re-appreciation of embeddedness from a relational perspective. European Planning Studies, 12(5), 659-673.) |
| The relational approach is a link between cultural research and economic focus. |
Ettlinger (2001Ettlinger, N. (2001). Cultural Economic geography and a relational and microspace approach to trust, rationalities, networks, and change in collaborative workplaces. Journal of Economic Geography, 3, 145-171.) |
| The relational analysis is not a rigid analytical framework or an explicit prospect for future research, but it is a methodology and a starting point for empirical work. |
Dicken, Kelly, Olds & Yeung (2001Dicken, P., Kelly, P. F., Olds, K., & Wai‐Chung Yeung, H. (2001). Chains and networks, territories and scales: towards a relational framework for analysing the global economy. Global networks, 1(2), 89-112.) |
| The relational perspective is a conceptual starting point. |
Dicken & Malmberg (2001Dicken, P., Kelly, P. F., Olds, K., & Wai‐Chung Yeung, H. (2001). Chains and networks, territories and scales: towards a relational framework for analysing the global economy. Global networks, 1(2), 89-112.) |
| Actors and its dynamic processes of changes and development generated by their relations are the basic units of relational perspective. |
Boggs & Rantisi (2003Boggs, J. S., & Rantisi, N. M. (2003). The ‘relational turn’in economic geography. Journal of economic geography, 3(2), 109-116.) |
| REG is not a single standard theory, but a way to observe the space. The relational point of view rests on the assumptions of context, path-dependence, and the contingency of economic action. The objective is to discover a new way to formulate research questions in economic geography different from those used in traditional regional science to obtain different answers. |
Bathelt & Glücker (2003Bathelt, H. (2003). Geographies of production: growth regimes in spatial perspective 1-innovation, institutions and social systems. Progress in Human Geography, 27(6), 763-778.) |
| REG integrates the economic and social, cultural, institutional, and political aspects of human action. |
Bathelt & Glückler (2003Bathelt, H. (2003). Geographies of production: growth regimes in spatial perspective 1-innovation, institutions and social systems. Progress in Human Geography, 27(6), 763-778.) |
| The Relational Perspective in economic geography is particularly suited to conceptualize economic and political action from a spatial perspective. In opposition to the traditional view, this approach allows us to analyze the consequences of global interdependencies and their relationships with the processes of local concentration and specialization. |
Bathelt (2003Bathelt, H. (2003). Geographies of production: growth regimes in spatial perspective 1-innovation, institutions and social systems. Progress in Human Geography, 27(6), 763-778.; 2005a; 2005b; 2006) |
| REG is not a carefully defined analytical framework; is a dispersed set of theories and ideas that share some characteristics and differ from certain aspects. |
Bathelt (2006Bathelt, H. (2006). Geographies of production: growth regimes in spatial perspective 3-toward a relational view of economic action and policy. Progress in human geography, 30(2), 223-236.) |
| The Relational Perspective is based on a micro-level approach, focusing on actors in those economic and social processes that result in agglomeration, economic specialization, unequal development. |
Bathelt (2006Bathelt, H. (2006). Geographies of production: growth regimes in spatial perspective 3-toward a relational view of economic action and policy. Progress in human geography, 30(2), 223-236.) |
| REG is concerned with social and spatial, division and integration of work, with the positive and negative impact of historical structures, processes and events on today's decisions, such as the processes of creation and dissemination of knowledge, as well as, its effects on technological change; and finally, the interactions between the economic agents and the formal and informal institutions that stimulate and restrict them. |
Bathelt & Glückler (2003Bathelt, H. (2003). Geographies of production: growth regimes in spatial perspective 1-innovation, institutions and social systems. Progress in Human Geography, 27(6), 763-778., 2011) |
| Relational perspectives are based on micro-level approaches, focusing on actors involved in economic and social processes that result in unequal outcomes such as levels of agglomeration, economic specialization, or development. |
Barrutia, Echebarria, Hartmann, & Apaolaza-Ibáñez (2013) |
| The counterpoint of the relational perspective provides an adequate spatial analogy to conceptualize cities by the level of their relationships. It conceptualizes the urban relations both linked and fragmented. Therefore, it designs cities according to spatial and temporal randomness in an inherent way that puts in the foreground the ruptures and the asymmetries of complex fragments instead of smooth totalities. |
O’Callaghan (2012O'Callaghan, C. (2012). Contrapuntal urbanisms: towards a postcolonial relational geography. Environment and Planning A, 44(8), 1930-1950.) |
Source: The authors (2018)