Beating the Casino: Conceptualizing an Anchoring-based Third Route to Regional Development

The development of new industries in peripheral regions has gained renewed attention recently. Yet, the processes through which peripheral regions can mobilize external resources and capabilities, and turn them into locally sticky resources for structural change and longer-term economic prosperity, have not been sufficiently conceptualized. This article proposes anchoring-based regional system building as a third route, which stands between conventional globalist and regionalist approaches. Based on a case study of the emergence of a globally leading electric vehicle battery industry in Ningde, China, the article explores in depth the system resource-mobilization processes and dynamic capabilities by anchor tenants and regional stakeholders that allow peripheral regions to make long jumps in the product space. We show that if the anchoring process is smartly managed, developing emerging industries in peripheral contexts is not necessarily a casino strategy but can be a strategic approach for quickly and deeply transforming the industrial fabric of regional economies.