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Clusters as vehicles for entrepreneurial innovation and new idea generation
– a critical assessment
Marc Bahlmann and Marleen Huysman
VU University Amsterdam
DIME workshop “Reconcidering the Regional Knowledge Economy”, Newcastle, 4-5 september 2008
kinresearch.nl
Contribution
• Points for reflection:• What is really happening within clusters
when using a knowledge perspective?
• Does it make sense to apply the cluster concept when studying knowledge flows among entrepreneurs?
• Social construction of clusters?
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Content of presentation
• Introducing the problem
• Contextual background
• Results
• Conclusionslide 3
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Introducing the problem
• Some key assumptions on clusters:• Local knowledge exchange is different from
inter-local counterpart
• Tacit knowledge is spatially sticky due to its context-specific nature. This social context is primarily defined locally
• Intra-local ties: dense interaction; strong ties; tacit knowledge exchange, whereas Inter-local ties: sparse interaction; weak ties; codified knowledge exchange
Source: e.g. Asheim 2002; Elfring 2008; Gertler 2003
Maskell and Malmberg 1999; 2002.
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Introducing the problem
• However:• Clusters can benefit from ties to other
“hotspots around the globe” (Bathelt et al., 2004)
• New Argonauts (Saxenian, 2006)
• Varieties of knowing exhibit different geographies of interaction (Amin & Roberts, 2008)
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Introducing the problem
• What is needed: our contribution• Beyond the conceptual
• Beyond the anecdotal
• Social Network Data: micro-levelslide 6
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Introducing the problem
• Therefore we ask:• What do entrepreneurs learn through
inter-cluster knowledge linkages?
• What are the characteristics of these linkages?
• How are these ties created and maintained?
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Contextual background: the Amsterdam New Media-cluster
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Immovator, Cross Media Monitor 2006
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Contextual background: the Amsterdam New Media-cluster
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Den Hertog et al., 2000
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Methods
• 32 respondents• Divided in two phases
• First phase: 24 interviews
• Second phase: qualitative SNA by means of 8 additional interviews• Resulting in 8 ego-networks
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Methods
• Qualitative SNA:• Some people are particularly useful in
helping you to be creative as an entrepreneur, such as helping you to generate new ideas. Who are the key people that help you the most to formulate and generate new ideas?
• Entrepreneurs draw primarily on inter-cluster ties
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Results: ego networks
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Results: ego-networks
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Results: ego-networks
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Results: ego-networks
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• Tacit knowledge flows among entrepreneurs take place both within and across cluster boundaries over different types of ties
• Conferences, trade fairs, etc.
• So what is the role of geographic proximity?
• And what is the role of social proximity?
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Results: knowledge exchange
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• 3 basic categories:• Local buzz: who knows what and who
does what with whom
• Market frontier: latest techn. developments and business prop.
• Ideological/ visionary debate
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Results: knowledge exchange
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• Example of such a debate:• The future of the semantic web
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Results: knowledge exchange
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• Ideological/ visionary debate• Interactive
• Normative
• Global
• Ideological
• The debate creates a context independent from clusters• “Epistemic proximity”?
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Conclusion
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• tacit knowledge flows among entrepreneurs take place both within and across cluster boundaries over different types of ties
• Inter-cluster knowledge ties facilitate an ideological debate
• Does the concept of epistemic proximity explain the transfer of tacit knowledge across different types of inter-cluster ties?
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Conclusion
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• A KBV on clusters: zooming in at micro-level of (tacit) knowledge flows
• Knowledge crosses formally defined cluster boundaries: Social construction of clusters?
• We need to reassess the role of• Geographical proximity
• Social proximity
• Epistemic proximity
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Questions and remarks
slide 21Marc Bahlmann:
Marleen Huysman: [email protected]
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