Border blocking effects in collaborative firm innovation

Border regions are not often associated with innovation and economic prosperity. And even when they are prosperous, cross-border interaction is still mostly limited. The opening up of borders in Europe has presented new opportunities for firms located in these border regions to co-operate for innovation and knowledge to flow across borders. Despite the reduction of the importance of borders, firms seeking to access cross-border knowledge resources need still to ‘cross’ the border and address the various effects it brings. This paper therefore asks the question of how the presence of a border affects the processes by which firms attempt to build up productive co-operations for innovation. We use a heuristic of collaborative innovation across borders as building up through four sequential cooperation stages, and each of these different stages is susceptible to different kinds of border effects. Using a case study of firms co-operating across the Dutch-Flemish border, we empirically explore these border crossing processes in order to shed further light on how border processes play out.     

基于物流企业网络的中国城市网络空间结构特征研究

借鉴世界城市网络研究代表性学者Taylor等提出的世界城市网络研究方法,以中国主要物流企业总部及分公司的分布数据为基础,生成国内物流企业网络,并从物流企业网络中各城市网络连接度、网络总体形态结构和三大城市群网络格局比较三方面分析解读中国城市网络空间结构特征。发现了中国城市网络节点城市连接度层次分布情况,城际网络联系强度分等,以及环渤海、长三角、珠三角三大巨型城市群内外部网络格局差异等结构现象,对中国城市网络空间特征研究做出了有效尝试。     

全球生产网络（GPNs）与区域发展的动态战略耦合——苏南与苏北韩资汽车行业企业价值捕获轨迹的比较

全球生产网络（GPN）2.0认为实现从低水平到高水平动态战略耦合是区域发展的动因。该分析框架认为应从垂直（组织）和水平（空间）两个维度来分析企业价值捕获轨迹，从而分析特定区域的战略耦合模式。选取62家江苏省韩国投资汽车行业企业，采用GPN 2.0分析框架分析企业价值捕获轨迹，并对比苏北和苏南GPNs和区域发展战略耦合的模式差异。研究发现：苏北处于“结构性耦合”阶段，苏南处于“功能性耦合”阶段。苏北和苏南应该采取不同发展战略，为实现更高水平的战略耦合做好准备。     

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 spatial dimension of internal labor markets

We integrate into a unified framework the spatial and the employment dimensions of worker mobility, tracing workers across firms, across establishments, and across regions. Drawing upon the spatial dimension of internal labor markets in firms with multiple establishments in multiple locations, our results indicate that the contemporaneous wage premium to migration is around 3 percentage points. For the case of job switchers, we find that the return to regional migration is due to access to better jobs at the destination. We also document the existence of an urban premium for same‐employer migrants but for employer changes this premium is driven by selection.     

Culturally clustered or in the cloud? How amenities drive firm location decision in Berlin

Creative firms are neither capital‐ nor land‐intensive in production. They predominantly rely on creative and specialized labor and, assuming a strong competition for workers, are therefore increasingly dependent on the location of their (potential) employees. If these creative and highly qualified employees are attracted by consumption amenities such as bars, clubs, and restaurants, then it follows that these same amenities may determine the location of creative service firms. I investigate this hypothesis by examining whether Berlin Internet start‐up firms locate in urban amenity‐rich places. Identification builds on the fall of the Berlin Wall. A 1 percent increase in amenity density raises the probability of a start‐up location by almost 2 percent. A comparison with other service industries suggests that amenities are significant to the location choice of creative sectors, whereas no effect can be observed for nonreative firms.     

Public financial support and firm-specific characteristics: evidence from Portugal

This paper analyses the underlying factors explaining a firm’s use of public financial support and possible misalignments between policy goals and the characteristics of firms holding a public grant. Using firm-level data for a sample of Portuguese manufacturing firms over the 2006–2013 period, we investigate how public financial support at the firm level is related to observable firm’s characteristics. Our findings suggest that firms lacking resources, capabilities and international involvement seem to be those with great barriers to use public financial support. Therefore, it cast doubts on the efficiency of public financial support programmes aiming to mitigate market failures, by assisting constrained firms. In turn, public financial support seems to boost market selection mechanisms by favouring ‘good’ firms and pushing less-endowed firms outside the market.     

Former Soviet cities in globalization: an intraregional perspective on interurban relations through networks of global service firms

This paper presents an empirical study of the globalizing urban landscape in the post-Soviet region. In order to understand the position of cities in relation to each other in the context of economic globalization, the study considers the transnational city network in the post-Soviet region. At the center of analysis are the locational strategies of global service firms operating in the former Soviet cities. We adapt the interlocking network model proposed by the Globalization and World Cities research (GaWC) network to the regional level to uncover the interurban relations. Unlike the classical studies of the GaWC, this study focuses on the analysis of intraregional spatial patterns of globalization. The research shows that the globalizing regional city system is in the midst of substantial restructuring and that the state of former Soviet Union (FSU) cities in relation to Moscow is altering. The integration of FSU cities into the global economy mostly occurs through capital cities. However, under the current political and economic circumstances, the position of each capital city within the region has become diversified. The analysis indicates that the globalization of cities within a particular region reproduces similar processes on a world scale, which are characterized by spatial concentration and hierarchical relations. However, our research has shown that patterns of urban globalization at the regional level significantly depend on the historical context and national economic and political tendencies, thus creating conditions for the penetration of the world economy into cities.     

知识密集型服务机构(KIBS)嵌入视角的集群企业成长实证研究框架

通过构建"知识密集型服务机构(KIBS)嵌入-集群网络结构-集群企业成长"的概念模型,本文分别对两阶段模型即"KIBS嵌入-集群网络结构"、"集群网络结构-知识能力-集群企业成长"进行深入理论分析,揭示了KIBS嵌入对集群企业成长的作用机制。     

Entrepreneurial firms in STI and DUI mode clusters: do they need differentiated cluster facilitation?

This paper elaborates on the types of knowledge sources, actors and geographical space that are involved in innovation processes among small entrepreneurial firms located in two distinct city-based clusters in Norway with firms characterized as typical STI mode innovators (Oslo Cancer Cluster) and DUI mode innovators (Subsea cluster in Bergen). The aim of the paper is to see how, when and why firms source distinct knowledge and to what degree this aligns with their initial knowledge base and STI or DUI innovation mode. Findings show that the knowledge base and innovation mode approach hold for describing the early stages of the innovation process, suggesting cumulative path-dependent knowledge dynamics. However, at later stages, firms combine STI and DUI mode innovation logics and activate different types of sources, actors and geographical scales through combinatorial knowledge dynamics, largely pushed forward by the need to solve unforeseen challenges, to understand markets and by the need to reduce risks associated with the newness of innovations. Furthermore, we find that rigid regulatory regimes influence the dynamic interplay between sources, actors and geographical scales in the process of creating and transmitting knowledge. Based on these findings, the paper proposes cluster roles and facilitation initiatives.