Knowledge Bases and the Geography of Innovation
Författare
Summary, in English
In order to account for the diversity of channels through which knowledge can be sourced and exchanged, particular attention is devoted to the notion of networks that connect firms and other organisations inside and outside the region, but also to other modes of knowledge transfer such as monitoring of collaborators and competitors, the mobility of knowledge embodied in skilled labour, and informal relations between individuals within knowledge communities. The dissertation reveals that the organisational and geographical scope of knowledge exchange is strongly (but not exclusively) shaped by the type of knowledge base that underlies innovation activities. The results point in the direction that symbolic industries, partly as a consequence of the context-dependency of cultural knowledge, are deeply embedded in localised knowledge networks, while knowledge exchange in synthetic industries is less locally organised and more governed by the national institutional framework. Analytical industries tend to rely less on localised sources of knowledge, and more on specialised knowledge providers in other parts of the world.
The research design is inspired by critical realist ontology, epistemology and methodology, and draws on a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. The empirical focus lies on several regional industries (or clusters) in different parts of Europe, with the main attention on the new media, food and life science industries in Scania, southern Sweden.
The dissertation consists of five articles that are published or forthcoming in peer-reviewed journals, preceded by an opening part which outlines the theoretical and methodological background framing the individual articles.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2012
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Meddelanden från Institutionen för kulturgeografi och ekonomisk geografi. Avhandlingar
Issue
5
Fulltext
- Available as PDF - 19 MB
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Dokumenttyp
Doktorsavhandling
Förlag
Lund University Press
Ämne
- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
- Human Geography
Nyckelord
- economic geography
- regional innovation systems
- learning regions
- differentiated knowledge bases
- knowledge networks
- social network analysis
- Scania
- Sweden
Status
Published
Handledare
- Björn Asheim
- Jerker Moodysson
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISBN: 978-91-7473-374-7
Försvarsdatum
2 oktober 2012
Försvarstid
13:15
Försvarsplats
Department of Human Geography, room 128 (Flygeln), Sölvegatan 10, Lund
Opponent
- Ron Boschma (Professor)