<![CDATA[Purpose – This conceptual article examines the gap between investment realization and the development of productive capabilities that can be retained by firms, workers, suppliers, and institutions in a region. It asks how investment-related opportunities may be converted into locally embedded capability rather than assuming that capital inflows automatically produce broad development.Design/methodology/approach – The article develops a conceptual synthesis across literature on absorptive capacity and learning, supplier development and local linkages, place-based regional development, implementation governance, and digital monitoring. The article is a theory-building conceptual synthesis, not a systematic review or statistical aggregation of effect sizes.Finding/Results – The article proposes the Regional Investment Conversion Debottlenecking Model (RICDM), an adaptive architecture linking investment inputs, conversion mechanisms, governance through an Investment Conversion Compact (ICC), digital execution, and the monitoring of outputs, capability outcomes, and longer-term regional impacts. The framework distinguishes project-level delivery from firm- and worker-level capability changes and from downstream regionaloutcomes.Originality/Value – The contribution is to define investment conversion as an intermediate, multi-actor process and specify how its mechanisms, governance arrangements, boundary conditions, and outcome levels can be investigated. RICDM is a conceptual proposition requiring empirical validation, not a demonstrated causal intervention.]]>
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