Where cities fail to triumph: The impact of urban location and local collaboration on innovation in Norway

The role of cities in fostering innovation has for long been taken for granted. Agglomeration and the knowledge spillovers generated in dense urban environments have been considered fundamental drivers of innovation. This view has, however, become challenged by research questioning the returns to physical agglomeration and local networking, placing instead more emphasis on the importance of interregional and international collaboration, and on innovation in peripheral regions. This paper delves into the debate on the role of cities for innovation by examining the interplay between urban location and local collaboration in Norway. It uses data from the Community Innovation Survey for 2006–2010 to map out the geographical dimension of R&D collaboration in Norwegian firms with a view to assessing whether different types of R&D collaboration in urban and rural locations affect firms’ propensity to innovate. The results show that local collaboration is associated with increased process and organisational innovation, while it does not produce higher levels of product or marketing innovation. Conversely, international collaboration is connected with higher probabilities of product, new-to-market and marketing innovations. Furthermore, location in urban or rural areas makes no difference for most innovation outcomes in Norway when other characteristics are controlled for. Location in cities also does not shape the returns to local R&D collaboration. Hence, the role of cities for innovation in Norway, whether in themselves or as sites for dense local interaction, is less relevant than the urban innovation literature would predict.     

The Role of Pilot Projects in Urban Climate Change Policy Innovation

Cities are taking a leadership role in addressing global climate change and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but policy innovations are needed to help cities move from goals to outcomes. Pilot projects are one means by which cities are experimenting with new ways of governing and financing climate change mitigation. In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding the role of pilot projects in urban policy innovation: their emergence and rationale, and the means by which they ultimately scale up and out to reduce GHG emissions. We use this framework to evaluate a pilot project for retrofitting social housing buildings in Toronto. We find the initial pilot project helped address the challenges of pursuing deep retrofits of social housing. Scaling these lessons up to the city level required overcoming challenges to financing and coordinating a larger project; scaling out to the provincial level revealed institutional and political obstacles to pursuing the co-benefits of deep building retrofits in social housing. Bridging agents play an important role in both scaling processes. The analysis reveals the additive nature of urban policy innovation and the dynamic interplay of change agents and institutional and political context in innovation processes.     

The Post‐Industrial “Shop Floor”: Emerging Forms of Gentrification in San Francisco's Innovation Economy

The San Francisco Bay Area in California is undergoing a technology‐driven wave of growth arguably more thoroughgoing than the first “dot‐com” bubble, fueling hypertrophic gentrification and tales of a deeply class‐divided, “Blade Runner kind of society”. While Silicon Valley is still the industry's employment center, San Francisco is seeing faster tech firm growth, and is transforming its downtown to become more “livable” and promoting public space as key to innovation. In this context, this paper offers a reading of urban public space not just as a consumption amenity but also as the “shop floor” of a labor process that goes beyond the walls of the firm to mobilize the social itself in the production of privately appropriated value. With innovation now the watchword of gentrification, the stakes of this shift oscillate between the total commodification of urban vitality and the recognition of the social process of value production itself.     

Multiple paths of development: knowledge bases and institutional characteristics of the Swedish food sector

The aim of this paper is to explore the relation between the critical knowledge base of firms and how firms respond to incentives embedded in the institutional framework surrounding them. The analysis gives us a better understanding of the complex development of the food sector in Southern Sweden in the past decades. Theoretically, the paper combines concepts of path dependency and knowledge bases, and applies this framework to a set of development trajectories of firms in the Scanian food sector. Three development paths are identified—path extension, path renewal and new path creation. Findings illustrate that these are rooted in different knowledge base combinations of firms, which make them respond differently to similar place- and sector-specific institutional conditions.     

New venture high growth in high-tech environments

The aim of this article is to understand the triggering factors of new firm growth in high-tech environments (life science, knowledge-intensive business services [KIBS] and engineering) by studying a representative sample of high-growth Italian start-ups. Our empirical research uses the information gathered during direct interviews with managers through a semi-structured questionnaire, which was presented to 382 new Italian firms. Considering the characteristics of new firms, this article summarizes the key growth factors. Investment in acquiring new competencies both in technology and marketing, development of dynamic capabilities (investment in human resources and new routines) and access to external knowledge and information sources emerged as significant.     

Improbable Art: The Creative Economy and Sustainable Cluster Development in a Hong Kong Industrial District

A noted Singapore-based cultural geographer and specialist on Asia analyzes the emergence and functioning of a unique artistic cluster in Hong Kong's Fotan light industrial district. The objective of the research is to understand how artistic work in the cluster, despite some challenges, has thus far proven sustainable in cultural, social, and economic terms. The findings of this case study permit further clarification of several dimensions of an emerging theory of cultural/creative clusters, which should be considered as distinct from business and industrial clusters. Selective comparisons between the Fotan cluster and the Moganshan Lu cluster in Shanghai demonstrate that cultural/creative clusters do not face uniform challenges in striking a balance between economic and cultural sustainability.     

我国特大城市协调性发展的创新模式探究

改革开放以来,工业化与城镇化成为我国经济快速增长和社会全面发展的主要驱动力。城市现代化与交通运输网络体系的建立促进了城乡一体化发展,缓解了城乡二元结构矛盾。但由于我国人口众多,基础设施建设不足,城市发展面临的主客观因素复杂,发展协调性问题日益突出。大城市尤其是百万人口以上的特大城市,城市盲目蔓延,生态环境污染与破坏严重,发展严重不协调。针对我国特大城市发展协调性问题,对其发展背景、挑战、研究的必要性和创新模式构建等根本性问题进行初步的探索研究,以全面促进我国城市健康可持续发展。     

模块化视角下上海时尚产业发展路径研究

本文引入模块化相关理论并以此为理论基础考察了五大时尚之都(伦敦、米兰、巴黎、纽约和东京)的时尚产业及其模块化组织发展状况。通过调研所得资料提炼这些城市时尚产业的模块化发展要素及其作用机理,并总结其时尚产业模块化组织价值创新的发展路径。结合上海时尚产业的发展现状,对其具备的共同要素和特殊要素进行分析,说明在经过十余年的发展后,上海时尚产业在模块化进程中所处的阶段及其与时尚之都的差距。并以此为基础设计适合上海城市发展特点的时尚产业模块化发展路径。本文认为通过扶植创新要素、深化生产要素、提升消费要素、促进各个要素良性互动的措施,可以帮助上海时尚产业实现本土化和国际化的有效融合,进而实现其模块化组织价值创新。     

唐服饰文化的旅游创意研究

本文基于西安悠久厚重的唐文化底蕴,以构建东方人文特色的国际一流旅游目的地的发展目标为出发点,分析唐服饰文化的旅游文化价值,并对唐服饰文化创意与西安旅游业联动开发模式进行分析比较研究,提出了继承创新和体制机制创新促进旅游文化创意产业发展的相关建议。     

国外创新网络研究述评与区域共生创新战略

创新网络是企业创新在地理空间和战略关系层面上的综合体现。在经济地理视角下,本文重点从企业层面的联盟创新网络,产业层面的集群创新网络,以及区域层面的共生创新网络加以具体评述与分析。在企业层面,强调企业在网络当中的核心地位,以及如何通过企业战略联盟构建创新网络;在产业层面,强调产业集群要素对创新网络影响,更倾向刻画创新网络是一种以产业地理空间为边界的整体性创新网络;在区域层面,跨越企业所处的产业边界,基于生态共生思想提出区域共生创新网络的新范式。最后,提出创新网络未来的研究应重点关注企业、产业与区域三个层面的协同演化,突破传统区域创新网络的空间特征和地理格局,探讨如何构架一个具有层次性、协同性和互动开放性的区域生态共生创新网络。