Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
established and earlier alternatives are excluded; in other words it is a
path- dependent
process (see also Arthur 1989). Fifth, the specific path of
innovation in each firm and location is constrained by a system of tech-
nological
interrelatedness
between firms, types of activity and knowledge
sources (Nelson and Winter 1982).
All these attributes have crucial implications for a spatial analysis of
the sources of innovation and for explaining the dynamics of industrial
agglomeration. The importance of space in lowering the barriers and costs
of knowledge sharing and transmission is related to the basic properties of
knowledge and learning processes, most of all their degree of complexity
and tacitness (Breschi and Malerba 2005). Cumulative and incremental
innovative processes operate through non-linear and self-reinforcing feed-
backs between technological and structural change. There is an array of
constraints and conditions that are basically idiosyncratic to economic and
social structures and the historical paths of locations affect learning and
knowledge accumulation (Antonelli 2008; Patrucco 2009). Differentiation
means heterogeneity, which is found at the micro-level of the firm as
well as at the meso-level of the industrial, regional or local environment
(Boschma and Lambooy 1999; Garofoli 2003). The latter is heterogeneous
due to a combination of chance or stochastic events, and path dependent
as a result of historical contingency.
5
Geographical space therefore acts as
a selection mechanism that may, or may not provide conditions favourable
to meeting the requirements of technical change. Interrelatedness has an
important influence on the locational specificity of innovation processes,
as it may be costly to change the methods prevailing in an individual firm
or industry without complementary changes elsewhere in the same context
(thus, outside the control of any particular firm). Hence, the main reason
for knowledge to be confined to certain geographical contexts is assumed
to be its inherent complexity, which may make it difficult to share among
different interacting actors or organizations. Such complexity may prevent
knowledge from being codified and made explicit and mobile, and thereby
stored and transmitted by way of information (Steinmueller 2000; Breschi
and Lissoni 2001a, b). It is these arguments which underlie the knowledge
'filter' hypotheses (Acs 2002). Moreover, this wider notion of knowledge
may also embrace cultural and institutional differences, which shape the
spatial patterns of knowledge production, absorption and diffusion.
By viewing knowledge-creation processes as complex, cumulative, par-
tially tacit and path dependent phenomena, there are strong grounds for
arguing that innovation is very likely to stay highly concentrated across
space, organizations and hierarchies, thereby giving rise to rather dis-
tinctive growth patterns. Technological innovation is in fact generally
more 'sticky' than production, and this may be explained through the