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

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

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

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

Sectoral systems of innovation and production

Innovation scholars have long recognized entrepreneurship is ‘imitative’, whereas the commercialization of novelty is ‘innovative’. Thus they are highly distinctive skill-sets. Entrepreneurship, first, involves optimizing market sentiment for pure profit sometimes to the point of catastrophe and even fraudulence in many markets. These include: payment protection insurance (PPI) to ‘flash crashes’, automotive emission ‘defeat devices’, corporate bribery settlements, social media ‘hacking’, ‘fake news’ and a litany of other infractions and catastrophes. Innovation, by contrast, is more explorative and team-reliant. Even if patenting betrays the hope for commercialization on markets, patented innovation frequently fails. Some academic innovators even profess a preference for prizes over profits. Second, this means that collective ‘bonding’ among entrepreneurs, in the form of claimed ‘entrepreneurial ecosystems’, is often based on a single customer platform or as a supplier of a highly specialist type...

‘Digital tech’ and the public sector: what new role after public funding?

The question of whether class or territory is the stronger basis of social mobilisation is examined. It is suggested that the economic problems being experienced by many older industrial areas can give rise to regional coalitions that seek to transcend class antagonisms in order to press for state investment to improve regional growth and employment prospects. But it is further argued that, because of the heterogeneity of the sociospatial base in such regions, supralocal coalitions will be vulnerable to the effects of allocative decisions favouring particular within-region locations. The notion of the vulnerability of regional social bases to the expression of local class interests is explored in the context of industrial South Wales. This region has been subject to successive attempts at economic revival, often in response to an apparently coherent regional voice pressing for state regional interventions. Important parts of various policies for restructuring the regional economy have been defeated in the...

Regional Restructuring: Class Politics and Popular Protest in South Wales

COOKE P. and WELLS P. (1991) Uneasy alliances: the spatial development of computing and communication markets, Reg. Studies 25, 345–354. This paper explores the role of geographical space as a dynamizing element in the economic development process. It builds on the insight that space makes a significant difference to business activity by virtue of the capacity to transform products into commodities through the purchasing power of geographically dispersed commodity consumers. Following a discussion of the implications of the growth of international and global market opportunities in a context of deregulatory lowering of market barriers, the preliminary results of research into the business dispositions of computing and communications (C & C) firms is presented. This shows that, for the most part, the desire to penetrate ever-wider geographical markets is having transformative effects upon the internal and external organizational structures of such firms. COOKE P. et WELLS P. (1991) Des alliances difficiles...

Uneasy alliances: the spatial development of computing and communication markets

This book analyses the economic development of cities from the ‘cultural economy’ and ‘creative industry’ perspectives, examining and differentiating them as two related but distinct segments of contemporary city economies. The authors argue that although they are normally conflated, the first is largely subsidized while the second is highly entrepreneurial hence they actually make very different kinds of contribution to a city’s character, attractiveness and competitiveness.

Philip Cooke

Papers

‘Digital tech’ and the public sector: what new role after public funding?

Regional Restructuring: Class Politics and Popular Protest in South Wales

Uneasy alliances: the spatial development of computing and communication markets

Culture, Clusters, Districts and Quarters: Some Reflections on the Scale Question

Tertiarisation and socio-spatial differentiation in Wales