Demographischer Wandel im ländlichen Raum : Anpassungsdruck und Anpassungsstrategien regional orientierter Unternehmen

Titelangaben

Leick, Birgit ; Ströhl, Alexander:
Demographischer Wandel im ländlichen Raum : Anpassungsdruck und Anpassungsstrategien regional orientierter Unternehmen.
In: Europa Regional. Bd. 19 (2013) Heft 1 . - S. 41-55.
ISSN 0943-7142

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Abstract

According to the official population forecasts, demographic change will pose complex challenges on the rural regions of Germany. It is expected that they will face shrinking and ageing of their populations, leading most probably to decreases and structural changes in local demand in many industries within regional economies. Regionally oriented firms are key economic actors in such areas that will, without doubt, undergo significant changes in their established business models and regional market activities. To sustain competitive advantage in the long run under these new constellations, such firms will have to seek for adaptive strategies to cope with the changes ahead. Based on a model developed by PORTER and HARRIGAN that stems from strategic management research of the 1980s, we present an exploratory study of the potential competitive strategies established for shrinking regional markets. Using the NUTS-2 region of Upper Frankonia (Bavaria, Germany) as case region, we derive different types of strategies for coping with market-related changes. Our empirical fieldwork identifies a broad range of innovative strategies that firms from the case region mainly use to sustain market leadership in shrinking regional contexts and that support their competitive advantage at their home location. However, perceptions of demographic change and adaptive pres-sures vary across industries. Only a few firms and industries (such as materially location-dependent sectors) perceive the need to proactively formulate and implement adaptive strategies for regional market areas, which aim at coping with market-related changes forecast for the future. Most firms operate in a rather reactive way, which can be explained with their smallness and lack of resources needed for proactive, strategic behaviour. Nevertheless, there is evidence of an overall insufficient awareness of firm-level chances and risks associated with demographic change. In addition, regional policies and institutions have not yet found adequate responses to support particularly regional and small firms in their endeavours to address these market-related demographic challenges. Thus, the paper ends up presenting some evident policy recommendations which refer to structural characteristics of the firms and specific effects associated with the phenomenon of demographic decline.