Abstract:

Moravia–Silesia region (MSR) with the regional capital city of Ostrava is an old industrial region formerly based on monostructured economy in the field of hard coal mining and steel industries. In the last two decades this region underwent restructuring and significant diversification via development of ICT and automotive industries. The development of Ostrava region shows many similarities in evolution of economic structure in comparison with other similar regions in Europe such as Saarland or Ruhr area in Germany, whose diversification began via automotive and ICT development.

The aim of our research is to identify endogeneous and exogenous drivers of change in the automotive cluster in Ostrava region in the evolutionary perspective. Our main research activities are concentrated on the evolutionary analysis of factors (according to evolutionary economic geography) and identification of the key actors, policies and mechanisms leading to changes in the development of automotive industry in this region in the broader Central European context, especially in the last two decades. We will evaluate the impact of automotive on regional development, especially on employment and exports. Our intention is to try to formulate policy recommendations for upgrading of regional automotive cluster and its firms in global value and production networks.