What type of emerging green path is the Nordic battery industry : importation or new creation?

Abstract

The battery industry is an emerging green path; nonetheless, ascertaining the variety of emergence, i.e. whether the industry is a new creation or an imported path, requires more insight. This paper relies on Grillitsch and Asheim's typologies of green paths, particularly leveraging the features of path emergence, e.g. non-local firms, un-relatedness, newness, and resources, as a guide for explaining where the industry belongs. By adopting the Nordic battery industry as the empirical context, the paper suggests that the industry combines the features of both varieties based on unique regional conditions. Hence, the path import-creation concept is proposed to describe emerging green industries that exhibit both features. Actors at multilevel can leverage the study to enhance their understanding of the variety of green paths being pursued in the region. Also, the study advances the literature on regional industrial restructuring via new insight for situating the industry within the existing path typologies.