Boschma R. A. (2005) Proximity and innovation: a critical assessment, Regional Studies39, 61-74. A key issue in economic geography is to determine the impact of geographical proximity on interactive learning and innovation. We argue that the importance of geographical proximity cannot be assessed in isolation, but should always be examined in relation to other dimensions of proximity that may provide alternative solutions to the problem of coordination. We claim that geographical proximity per se is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for learning to take place. Nevertheless, it facilitates interactive learning, most likely by strengthening the other dimensions of proximity. However, proximity may also have negative impacts on innovation due to the problem of lock-in. Accordingly, not only too little, but also too much proximity may be detrimental to interactive learning and innovation. This may be the case for all five dimensions of proximity discussed in the paper, i.e. cognitive, organizatio...

Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment

The paper is concerned with spatial clustering of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in interactive learning processes. It questions the view that tacit knowledge transfer is confined to local milieus whereas codified knowledge may roam the globe almost frictionlessly. The paper highlights the conditions under which both tacit and codified knowledge can be exchanged locally and globally. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, the learning processes taking place among actors embedded in a community by just being there dubbed buzz and, on the other, the knowledge attained by investing in building channels of communication called pipelines to selected providers located outside the local milieu. It is argued that the co-existence of high levels of buzz and many pipelines may provide firms located in outward-looking and lively clusters with a string of particular advantages not available to outsiders. Finally, some policy implications, stemming from this argumen...

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Clusters and knowledge: local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation

Social Network Analysis

How have Japanese companies become world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries, among others? What is the secret of their success? Two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, are the first to tie the success of Japanese companies to their ability to create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. In The Knowledge-Creating Company, Nonaka and Takeuchi provide an inside look at how Japanese companies go about creating this new knowledge organizationally. The authors point out that there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in manuals and procedures, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience, and communicated only indirectly, through metaphor and analogy. U.S. managers focus on explicit knowledge. The Japanese, on the other hand, focus on tacit knowledge. And this, the authors argue, is the key to their success--the Japanese have learned how to transform tacit into explicit knowledge. To explain how this is done--and illuminate Japanese business practices as they do so--the authors range from Greek philosophy to Zen Buddhism, from classical economists to modern management gurus, illustrating the theory of organizational knowledge creation with case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, Nissan, 3M, GE, and even the U.S. Marines. For instance, using Matsushita's development of the Home Bakery (the world's first fully automated bread-baking machine for home use), they show how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge: when the designers couldn't perfect the dough kneading mechanism, a software programmer apprenticed herself withthe master baker at Osaka International Hotel, gained a tacit understanding of kneading, and then conveyed this information to the engineers. In addition, the authors show that, to create knowledge, the best management style is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather what they call "middle-up-down," in which the middle managers form a bridge between the ideals of top management and the chaotic realities of the frontline. As we make the turn into the 21st century, a new society is emerging. Peter Drucker calls it the "knowledge society," one that is drastically different from the "industrial society," and one in which acquiring and applying knowledge will become key competitive factors. Nonaka and Takeuchi go a step further, arguing that creating knowledge will become the key to sustaining a competitive advantage in the future. Because the competitive environment and customer preferences changes constantly, knowledge perishes quickly. With The Knowledge-Creating Company, managers have at their fingertips years of insight from Japanese firms that reveal how to create knowledge continuously, and how to exploit it to make successful new products, services, and systems.

The knowledge-creating company

This handbook looks to provide academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation. Innovation spans a number of fields within the social sciences and humanities: Management, Economics, Geography, Sociology, Politics, Psychology, and History. Consequently, the rapidly increasing body of literature on innovation is characterized by a multitude of perspectives based on, or cutting across, existing disciplines and specializations. Scholars of innovation can come from such diverse starting points that much of this literature can be missed, and so constructive dialogues missed. The editors of The Oxford Handbook of Innovation have carefully selected and designed twenty-one contributions from leading academic experts within their particular field, each focusing on a specific aspect of innovation. These have been organized into four main sections, the first of which looks at the creation of innovations, with particular focus on firms and networks. Section Two provides an account of the wider systematic setting influencing innovation and the role of institutions and organizations in this context. Section Three explores some of the diversity in the working of innovation over time and across different sectors of the economy, and Section Four focuses on the consequences of innovation with respect to economic growth, international competitiveness, and employment. An introductory overview, concluding remarks, and guide to further reading for each chapter, make this handbook a key introduction and vital reference work for researchers, academics, and advanced students of innovation. Contributors to this volume - Jan Fagerberg, University of Oslo William Lazonick, INSEAD Walter W. Powell, Stanford University Keith Pavitt, SPRU Alice Lam, Brunel University Keith Smith, INTECH Charles Edquist, Linkoping David Mowery, University of California, Berkeley Mary O'Sullivan, INSEAD Ove Granstrand, Chalmers Bjorn Asheim, University of Lund Rajneesh Narula, Copenhagen Business School Antonello Zanfei, Urbino Kristine Bruland, University of Oslo Franco Malerba, University of Bocconi Nick Von Tunzelmann, SPRU Ian Miles, University of Manchester Bronwyn Hall, University of California, Berkeley Bart Verspagen , ECIS Francisco Louca, ISEG Manuel M. Godinho, ISEG Richard R. Nelson, Mario Pianta, Urbino Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Aalborg

The Oxford Handbook of Innovation

This paper explores the geography and structure of global innovation networks (GINs) of two multinational companies belonging to industries with different knowledge bases. It contributes to the existing literature on knowledge bases, by studying both intra-firm and inter-firm GINs. By means of social network analysis based on primary data, we identify two different forms of GINs, namely the globally organized model and the locally organized model. The paper finds that, in addition to influencing the geographic spread of a GIN, the knowledge base also influences the way that a GIN is organized.

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The Geography and Structure of Global Innovation Networks: A Knowledge Base Perspective

The Creative Class and Regional Growth - Towards a knowledge based Approach. Paper

This chapter provides conceptual and empirical foundations for smart specialization, a policy approach of far-reaching importance in the European context. We interpret the very notion as “diversified” specialization into areas of existing or potential competitive advantage, which differentiates a region/nation from others. “Smart” relates to the identification of these areas through a process of entrepreneurial discovery, in which all actors are mobilized to be able to discover domains for securing existing and future competitiveness. Competitive advantage through smart specialization can be promoted in all types of industries but based on the industry-specific modes of innovation and knowledge bases, which is illustrated through case studies in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Depending on the preconditions, we find that variegated strategies of smart specialization are pursued, including building the absorptive capacity of DUI-based firms by increasing their research-based competence (introducing analytical knowledge), combining unrelated knowledge bases to move into new related and unrelated industries, combining related knowledge bases to move into unrelated industries, and moving into high value–added niches by introducing symbolic knowledge in traditional sectors.

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Smart Specialization as an Innovation-Driven Strategy for Economic Diversification: Examples From Scandinavian Regions

Regional Innovation Systems, Varieties of Capitalism and Non-Local Relations: Challenges from the Globalising Economy

The article discusses the strategic roles of public policy and institutions and the way this effect to the efficiency of regional innovation systems in the landscape of evolutionary economic geography. It argues that the current emphasis on path dependency historically contingent preconditions has provided important insights into the interdependencies between industrial knowledge bases and routines, regional system dynamics and long-term development paths. Yet, it falls short of capturing the scope of policy intervention which follows logically from the evolutionary framework itself. Anchored in a renewed regional innovation systems approach, the article presents a policy intervention framework for constructing regional advantage in different contexts.

Björn Asheim

Papers

The Geography and Structure of Global Innovation Networks: A Knowledge Base Perspective

The Creative Class and Regional Growth - Towards a knowledge based Approach. Paper

Smart Specialization as an Innovation-Driven Strategy for Economic Diversification: Examples From Scandinavian Regions

Regional Innovation Systems, Varieties of Capitalism and Non-Local Relations: Challenges from the Globalising Economy

What Does Evolutionary Economic Geography Bring To The Policy Table? Reconceptualising regional innovation systems