Absorptive capacity, complexity and regional renewal: a developmental psychology perspective

Regional renewal calls for system-level agency. However, at a micro-level, such agency calls for actors to confront paradoxical choices in development. Paradox, though, is a form of cognitive complexity that can trigger fight, flight, freeze or embrace responses. Based on developmental psychology, we outline when and why actors may or may not have the absorptive capacity for the paradoxical complexity involved in system-level agency. Focusing specifically on the absorptive capacity for complexity, developmental psychology thus complements agentic, behavioural explanations of renewal by exposing the cognitive factors which may impede system-level agency.