Less developed regions hardly break out of path dependency. These regions encounter a serious number of problems hampering the possibility to accelerate their growth. Thus, the aim of the paper is to analyse the possibility of changing development paths by less developed regions based on previous experience in recent years. Regions that managed to change the development path were characterized by a coherent regional policy, a very good preparation and education of human capital, a strong centre of the region (the metropolitan area) facilitating the development of entrepreneurship and innovation based on new industries (like service industries) and demand for manufactured goods and services. At the same time, the main city in the region must bridge the developing new path and the global world – it must provide physical and virtual accessibility for the whole region.

The aim of the research is to conceptualise the methodology of analysing regional development paths. To do so, the model of regional development path transformation was created. The model consists of indicators describing each of the process areas: 1) path dependency; 2) event exposure; 3) adaptation to short-term shocks; 4) long-term adaptability, and 5) region performance. The model also indicates relationships between these indicators and describes the most probable behaviours of the regional economies during the process.

The aim of the research was to identify factors favouring the change of innovation process models by diff erent regions, especially less developed regions. The chapter addresses the most critical issues in the literature of path dependence and resilience. Literature analysis allowed to identify the puzzling areas of the existing research and build out of them a transparent and holistic approach to a comprehensive set of conditions for the transformation of regional development paths. Findings of the research are an important step in understanding nonlinear and holistic processes of the renewal and creation of the regional development paths, as well as explaining how adaptation to short-term shocks and long-term adaptability is the result of the interactions among path dependency, event exposure and reactive ability.