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

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

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

/pdf/the-theory-of-industrial-organization-19bejph0ej.pdf

The Theory of Industrial Organization

One size fits all?: Towards a differentiated regional innovation policy approach

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Economic Geography following peer review. The version of record [Bathelt, H., Cantwell, J. & Mudambi, R. (2018). Overcoming frictions in trans-national knowledge flows: Challenges of connecting, sense-making and integrating. Journal of Economic Geography, 18(5), 1001-1022.] is available online at:
https://academic.oup.com/joeg/article/18/5/1001/5123425
[doi: 10.1093/jeg/lby047].

/pdf/overcoming-frictions-in-transnational-knowledge-flows-597udp8ci5.pdf

Overcoming frictions in transnational knowledge flows: challenges of connecting, sense-making and integrating

This analysis uses the case of a seemingly successful industry cluster (ie the film and TV industry in Munich) to demonstrate that deficits in the structure of social relations can impact a cluster's growth potential. In the period after World War II, Munich grew into a national centre of media industries in Germany due to the introduction of private/commercial TV, national entry barriers, and a supportive institutional infrastructure. The recent advertising crisis and the dissolution of the Kirch Group have, however, reinforced already existing internal dilemmas and contradictions. We suggest that the growth prospects of this industry are limited due to a lack of reflexive, interconnected communication and interaction patterns. In conceptual terms, we apply a model which emphasizes that local interaction or ‘buzz’ in clusters and interaction with external firms and markets through translocal or global ‘pipelines’ create reflexive dynamics. Based on this conception, participatory observation and semistruc...

/pdf/internal-and-external-dynamics-of-the-munich-film-and-tv-45xi3gzklu.pdf

Internal and external dynamics of the Munich film and TV industry cluster, and limitations to future growth

Bathelt H., Munro A. K. and Spigel B. Challenges of transformation: innovation, re-bundling and traditional manufacturing in Canada's Technology Triangle, Regional Studies. This paper develops a perspective of regional re-bundling in overcoming economic crises. It does this by focusing on the effects of the recent global financial crisis on traditional manufacturing. It analyses the structure of innovation processes and their development over time in Canada's Technology Triangle – a region known for university-related spin-off processes and successful modernization. What is less well known is that this region has been strongly influenced by traditional manufacturing industries. It is shown that these industries have been well prepared to deal with the effects of the crisis due to ongoing innovation and diversification stimulated by prior economic crises. Bathelt H., Munro A. K. and Spigel B. 转型的挑战：创新、再绑定以及加拿大技术三角中的传统制造业， 区域研究。本文提出了区域绑定视角来应对经济危机。文章通过集中于目前传统制造业全球金融危机效应，对此问题进行了考察。文章分析了创新过程的结构以及加拿大技术三角的发展。人们普...

/pdf/challenges-of-transformation-innovation-re-bundling-and-hsiw8ip3ze.pdf

Challenges of Transformation: Innovation, Re-bundling and Traditional Manufacturing in Canada’s Technology Triangle

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/87783/1/77_Rinallo%20et%20al%202017_IMM.pdf

Harald Bathelt

Papers

Overcoming frictions in transnational knowledge flows: challenges of connecting, sense-making and integrating

Internal and external dynamics of the Munich film and TV industry cluster, and limitations to future growth

Challenges of Transformation: Innovation, Re-bundling and Traditional Manufacturing in Canada’s Technology Triangle

Economic geography and industrial marketing views on trade shows: Collective marketing and knowledge circulation

Innovation, Institution und Region: zur Diskussion über nationale und regionale Innovationssysteme