Understanding Sluggish Regional Development. Collaborative Paradoxes from Cali, Colombia

Emerging economies face persistent challenges in revitalising regional development after the decline of traditional industries, particularly when trying to catalyse innovation-driven development. Weak stakeholder collaboration hampers attempts to renew local assets. From Evolutionary Economic Development, the New Path Development (NPD) framework outlines pillars for economic regeneration, however some regions cannot achieve structural change. As regional governance networks draw greater attention, it becomes important to examine why stakeholders often struggle to overcome established trajectories and drive meaningful change.

This study examines path development dynamics in the context of innovation-driven development in Cali, Colombia's third largest once-boasting industrial region. Using a qualitative research design based on abductive thematic analysis of archival records and stakeholder interviews, the study develops an explanatory model grounded in NPD, Lock-in and Collaborative Paradoxes to explain why actors struggle with sluggish coordination during regional transformation.

Reframing these path development constraints as collaborative paradoxes clarifies why places like Cali cannot fully engage with new avenues of development. Analysis of their paradoxical management shows that these challenges are not isolated but entangled, forming knots that hinder actors' capacity to pool efforts for change. Practitioners and policymakers should focus on policy drafting that tackles both the creation and strengthening of institutionalised networks. Instead of producing more instances of entrepreneurial support, the renewal of innovation-driven development could be strengthened by addressing the relational level of regional stakeholders that increases paradoxical management.