Mobile Marketplaces—Consequences of the Changing Governance of European Stock Exchanges

ABSTRACT Deregulation and increasing cross‐border competition in the financial industry are affecting not only firms but also those organisations that provide markets, i.e., stock exchanges. The process of changing governance structures is exemplified in this paper by the case of Deutsche Börse AG, the Frankfurt‐based main German stock exchange. The paper focuses on the reasons for relocations of national stock exchanges, and possible consequences for local firms. Secondary trading is based mainly on the exchange of (price) information, so traders were able to move away from the Frankfurt floor quite easily. However, many of them gathered together in London because of the knowledge‐intensive communications between them, e.g., interpretations of rumours, market mood, etc. On the other hand, the primary markets—firms issuing new shares—are also based on the exchange of tacit knowledge. With two spatially separated groups of users, traders in London in the secondary markets and firms in Germany in the primary market, Deutsche Börse faces a “user‐producer interface dilemma.” Thus, a possible relocation of executive functions to London combined with the complex interplay between information and knowledge exchange in financial markets could have negative consequences for the financing conditions of local firms.     

Emerging geography of technological innovation in China's ICT industry: Region,inter‐firm linkages and innovative performance in a transitional economy

This study critically evaluates the relevance of the existing theory of technological innovation to the case of China's information and communications technology industry. Based on a large‐scale questionnaire survey conducted in China's three most important city‐regions, namely, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, where the core of China's information and communications technology industry is located, this study reveals a significant regional variation in technological innovation in a political economy undergoing marketisation and globalisation. This research has found no significant relationship between the innovative performance of firms and the extent of production linkages; nor was there a significant knowledge exchange among firms. A further analysis has identified the significant role played by government purchases, research and development capital input and export propensity in the process of technological innovation. The findings of this research cast doubts over the prevailing theory of ‘new economic geography’ in which soft and unbounded relational assets have been overemphasised at the expense of some solid and bounded actors and agents that are pivotal to technological innovation in a developing economy.     

The impact of external knowledge sourcing on innovation outcomes in rural and urban businesses in the U.S.

This paper examines the relationship between external knowledge sourcing and a diverse set of innovation outcomes in rural and urban establishments in the U.S. Existing studies in the broader knowledge management literature principally examine firms in a single industry, overwhelmingly rely on patent data to proxy for innovation, and cannot account for the innovations of businesses in rural American markets. By addressing these limitations using data from the 2014 Rural Establishment Innovation Survey of the USDA's Economic Research Service, this research provides novel insights into how externally acquired knowledge by American establishments may support innovation. Results of the analysis suggest that external knowledge sourcing may specifically promote product, process, and green innovation in U.S. firms. While collective results when external sources of information are divided by industry orientation fail to show that sources outside of a firm's industry play a dominant role in the innovation processes of American establishments in general, findings provide evidence for an outsized impact of these relationships within rural establishments specifically and suggest that external knowledge sourcing from extra‐industry organizations is most critical for promoting successful innovation in rural firms. Results additionally indicate that knowledge sourcing from non‐local organizations may be more important for supporting innovation in rural compared to urban markets.     

Location and the Innovation Performance of Commercial GIS Companies

This paper looks at the role of firm size, location, and in‐house research and development (R&D) in the innovation performance of U.S. firms in the commercial geographic information systems (GIS) industry. Data from a survey of 300 GIS firms are presented. The results suggest that innovation‐intensity varies directly with in‐house R&D spending (scaled as a proportion of company sales), but inversely with company size (total employment). Significant regional variations in the innovation performance of GIS firms are identified. It is argued that the geography of innovation is influenced by the spatial distribution of young and/or small firms, in that R&D‐productivity is found to vary inversely with company size. An important finding is that creative inputs to support innovation are almost evenly divided between internal and external sources. A surprising result is that the academic community is not viewed as a particularly important source of new ideas for innovative firms. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the survey data for future empirical work on the GIS sector.     

Geography and the Future of Stock Exchanges: Between Real and Virtual Space

ABSTRACT This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the future of stock exchanges and financial centres by focusing on two questions. First, whether, how, why, and which stock exchange activities are prone to concentration in financial centres? Second, are they prone to concentration in national or international financial centres? Through a detail‐rich analysis of stock exchange activities, including trading system, as well as relationships with members, issuers, and investors, the paper suggests a framework for the geography of stock exchange activities based on two dimensions—proneness to concentration in a financial centre and proneness to international consolidation. With this framework, predictions are made about the future geography of stock exchange activities led by the argument that while significant geographical reconfigurations are likely to unfold, driven primarily by the development of international networks of stock market institutions, stock exchanges, and financial centres will remain crucially important for each other.     

DUI and STI innovation modes in the Canadian wine industry: The geography of interaction modes

This paper explores the geography of collaborations and interactions that are linked to DUI (Doing, Using, and Interacting) and STI (Scientific and Technologically based Innovation) innovation modes in the wine industry: that is, the geography of interaction modes. DUI and STI interaction modes are analysed by exploring their association with innovation and the extent to which this varies with geography. The results, based upon firm-level data from a sample of 151 Canadian wineries, suggest that different types of innovation are connected to specific interaction modes. We show that the effects of each interaction mode are strongly dependent on whether the mode is deployed regionally or non-regionally. In particular, the paper highlights marked differences between regional and non-regional DUI and between regional and non-regional STI interactions modes with respect to their association with innovation outcomes.     

Knowledge,Market Structure,and Economic Coordination: Dynamics of Industrial Districts

The industrial rise of the Third Italy has been characterized by the growth of dynamic networks of flexible small and medium–sized enterprises (SMEs) that are spatially concentrated in specialized industrial districts. This network type of coordination has been associated with horizontal, trust–based relations rather than vertical relations of power and dependency between local organizations. This would lower transaction costs (essential for local systems with an extreme division of labor), facilitate the transmission and exchange of (tacit) knowledge (and thus, learning and innovation), encourage cooperation mechanisms (such as the establishment of research centers), and stimulate political–institutional performance (e.g. through regulation of potential social conflicts). From an evolutionary perspective, the focus is on the dynamics of industrial districts drawing from current experiences in Italy. In this respect, this paper concentrates on two main features of industrial districts that have largely contributed to their economic success in the past, that is, their network organization and the collective learning process. The evolution of industrial districts is described in terms of organizational adjustments to structural change. The way in which the size distribution of firms has changed is discussed (in particular the role of large companies), how the (power) relationships between local organizations have evolved, what are the current sources and mechanisms of learning, and to what extent institutional lock–in has set in. Finally, a number of trajectories districts may go through in the near future are presented.     

Technology Search and Firm Bounds in Biotechnology: New Firms as Agents of Change

Schumpeterian perspectives on industrial change suggest a relationship between new firms and the regionally specific technological bases for innovation. However, the links between such firms and the knowledge bases for innovation are more implicit than explicit. The innovation process in new firms reflects both the capabilities found within the firm as well as information sourcing from without. This paper seeks to articulate the nature of change in relationships between firms in science-based industries and the technological infrastructure accessed to support innovation, as such industries mature out of the birth phase. Innovation is treated as decision making, identifying the firm as innovator and agent of change. Survey research suggests that a shift in the sourcing of information, and an associated shift in the character of information accessed, occurred with maturation in the study industry, comprised of biotechnology firms in the U.S. “Early” and “later” forming firms show somewhat different technology sourcing patterns. Interviews were conducted to help interpret these findings. Implications for industry development are suggested.     

Innovation efficiency and spatial spillover in urban agglomerations: A case of the Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei,the Yangtze River Delta,and the Pearl River Delta

Based on panel data of innovation inputs and outputs in 53 cities of the three major Chinese urban agglomerations (UAs) spanning the 2001–2015 period, this study examines the influence of the spatial spillover effect among cities on innovation efficiency in UAs using the SFA method and a spatial econometric model. Three main conclusions can be draw from the empirical results. First, the innovation efficiency in the three UAs has increased over the research period, but there is enormous potential for improvement. Second, owing to the close socioeconomic linkages and the flow of innovation resources, there is a significantly positive spatial spillover effect between cities on innovation efficiency in the three UAs. In other words, innovation efficiency in a local city was positively influenced by the other cities in the UA. Particularly, the innovation efficiency in a local city is influenced by factors related to not only the city itself but also other cities in the UA. Third, as the geographical distance increases, the spillover effect on innovation efficiency shows nonlinear variations, indicating that the excessive expansion in UAs may not be attributed to innovation development.     

Developing the Shanghai online games industry: A multi‐scalar institutional perspective

In recent decades, while place‐based policies and local development have attracted the interest of institutional economic geography, the issue of features of certain industries and how they are shaping and shaped by institutions at multiple spatial scales, has not been taken up sufficiently. This paper, based on a local creative industry—the Shanghai online games industry, which is an essential part of the new media sector, takes issue with it. It explores two aspects, namely how multi‐scalar institutions relate and influence the development of the online games industry in Shanghai and how local firms and entrepreneurs affect local and national institutions. It shows that the three aspects that are related to media sector in general and games industry in particular (i.e., cultural influence, technological significance, and economic value) matter much as they have resulted in diverse industry‐relevant policies and regulations devised by local and national states. Moreover, local firms and entrepreneurs with different capacities and characteristics also differ much in influencing the design of the industry‐specific institutions in the face of institutional voids.     

State Policies,Enterprise Dynamism,and Innovation System in Shanghai,China

ABSTRACT Today rapidly growing economies depend more on the creation, acquisition, distribution, and use of knowledge. As such, strategies for enhancing research and innovation capabilities have come to occupy a more important position in many developing nations, including China. Already the leading production center, and often seen as China's economic locomotive, Shanghai is striving aggressively to retain its national preeminence and has launched concerted efforts to increase local innovative output. The primary purpose of this paper is to understand how state‐led efforts have fared in promoting technology innovation. By situating the city in the national and global context, the paper shows that Shanghai has gained a substantial lead in developing an innovation environment with extensive global linkages and leading research institutions. Recent efforts in building up the research and innovation capacity of the enterprise sector have begun to show progress. Although firms are enthusiastic about its future as an innovation center, Shanghai continues to face challenges of inadequate protection of intellectual property, lack of venture capital investment, and the tightening supply of highly qualified knowledge workers.     

Innovation Ideas and Regional Characteristics: Product Innovations and Export Entrepreneurship by Firms in Swedish Regions

ABSTRACT This paper focuses upon the ways in which characteristics of regions in regards to knowledge sources, communication opportunities, and absorptive capacity influence the development of innovation ideas among existing and potential entrepreneurs. We formulate a model where entrepreneurs or innovating firms introduce new products in a quasi‐temporal setting. Market conditions are characterised by monopolistic competition between varieties belonging to the same product group, in which there is entry and exit of varieties. A stochastic process is assumed to generate new innovation ideas as time goes by, and a firm (entrepreneur) who receives such an idea has to transform the idea to an innovation, which in the model is specified as a particular variety combined with a specific destination market. The theoretical model is used as a reference when formulating two regression models, with which we estimate how a set of regional characteristics are associated with the likelihood of innovation ideas across Swedish local labour market regions. In one model, we examine the emergence of new export varieties, and in the second model, we investigate the appearance of new export firms. Results are consistent with the assumption that knowledge and information flows have a positive influence on the frequency of arrival of innovation ideas to firms.     

Network Structure,Knowledge Governance,and Firm Performance: Evidence from Innovation Networks and SMEs in the UK

It is increasingly understood that learning and thus innovation often occurs via highly interactive, iterative, network‐based processes. Simultaneously, economic development policy is increasingly focused on small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) as a means of generating growth, creating a clear research issue in terms of the roles and interactions of government policy, universities, and other sources of knowledge, SMEs, and the creation and dissemination of innovation. This paper analyses the contribution of a range of actors in an SME innovation creation and dissemination framework, reviewing the role of various institutions therein, exploring the contribution of cross‐locality networks, and identifying the mechanisms required to operationalise such a framework. Bivariate and multivariate (regression) techniques are employed to investigate both innovation and growth outcomes in relation to these structures; data are derived from the survey responses of over 450 SMEs in the UK. Results are complex and dependent upon the nature of institutions involved, the type of knowledge sought, and the spatial level of the linkages in place but overall highlight the value of cross‐locality networks, network governance structures, and certain spillover effects from universities. In general, we find less support for the factors predicting SME growth outcomes than is the case for innovation. Finally, we outline an agenda for further research in the area.     

International Knowledge Flows and the Role of Proximity

International knowledge flows have become increasingly common and more frequent and are a key driving force promoting the development of global science. However, little attention has been paid to the determinants of international scientific collaboration. Using co‐publication data from the Web of Science database in the period 2000–2014, this paper illustrates spatial patterns of international knowledge flows and estimates the impact of geographical, technological, social, and cultural proximity on the variation of inter‐country collaboration in science. Our findings demonstrate that the coefficients of the four dimensions of proximity are positive and significant in panel estimates and cross‐section estimates—international knowledge flows are facilitated by geographical, technological, social, and cultural proximity. We also find that the effect of geographical and cultural proximity have waned over time, while the impact of social and technological proximity have strengthened.     

国家产业体系与地方创新团队对接机制的探索与思考

国家现代农业产业技术体系与地方创新团队的有效对接是提升科技支撑产业发展的有效方式。笔者介绍了国家产业体系的三大突破和四川创新团队的主要特点,着重阐述了二者在优势特色产业选择、全产业链设计、人员聘用、职能分工、综合试验站和产业示范基地县功能定位、效益延伸等方面的有效对接,最后从建立交流合作、双向考核、相互流动、有效利益连接机制等方面提出了对策建议,以期为推动国家产业体系和地方创新团队建设特别是二者的有效对接提供参考。     

Non‐Linear Relationships of Internal and External Resources on a Firm's Innovation: The Case of the Spanish Vinalopó Footwear Cluster

This paper aims to enrich the analysis on the significance of the individual firm resources in a cluster and the effects of diverse cluster relationships, including local and non‐local ones, on firms' innovation capacity. On questioning the commonly accepted direct and positive impact, we explore the joint and non‐linear effects of internal resources and inter‐organisational relationships on innovation. Data from 251 footwear manufacturers located in the Spanish Vinalopó cluster were used to explore the proposed causal relationships. According to findings, the impact of each factor on product innovation is not homogeneous. Internal innovation efforts and cooperation with local suppliers positively affect the creation of new products, while collaboration with local customers and extra‐cluster linkages presents an inverted U‐shaped relationship with product innovation. Finally, a number of implications may be drawn for policy makers, practitioners, and future research.     

Spatial evaluation of knowledge spillover benefits in China’s free trade zone provinces and cities

China has established several free trade zones (FTZs) in recent years, which are becoming new drivers of growth for regional economic development. As the FTZ reform deepens, protecting intellectual property rights and improving application systems have become important for encouraging innovation in FTZs. To understand the knowledge spillover effects in different FTZs, this paper selects indicators at different levels of knowledge evaluation and uses the 2017 data of the provinces and cities where the first three batches of FTZs set up by China are located as samples to perform empirical analysis on knowledge spillover effects with a corrected spatial knowledge spillover model. According to the evaluation, the spatial knowledge spillover effects vary among FTZs—the spatial knowledge spillover effects of economically developed regions are smaller (0.0421), while their spillover effects on other FTZs are bigger (0.0795). In addition, the knowledge spillover effects of adjacent FTZ provinces and cities are significantly greater; the spatial spillover effects of southeastern coastal FTZ provinces and cities are more than those of central and western regions as well as northeastern provinces and cities (0.0795; 0.0533; 0.0672). This study is helpful for governments and policy makers to develop appropriate incentive policies for knowledge innovation targeting the knowledge spillover characteristics of different FTZs.     

Local Diversity,Human Creativity,and Technological Innovation

The purpose of this paper is to point out some shortcomings of traditional approaches to the study of “knowledge spillovers” and to suggest an alternative based on how knowledge is actually created and exchanged by individuals. Which regional setting is the best incubator of technological change and economic growth? Is this promoted by regional diversity or specialization of economi activity? This study will include economic analyses of geographically localized “dynamic knowledge externalities, Jacob's externalities, or adding new work to old, industrial classification and technology combination, human creativity, and technology combination through human action and imaginative use of resources. Employees add to, or switch their product line; individuals move from one type of production to another; individuals observe a product/process in another setting and incorporate it; individuals possessing different skills and working for different firms collaborate; and urban diversity and resource collaboration are utilized. It is concluded that problems are solved through the combination of previously unrelated things and that promoting regional specialization at the expense of spontaneously evolved local diversity might be a counter‐productive policy.     

Interpersonal trust,invention, and innovation across European regions

Many studies in economics and regional science claim a positive link between interpersonal trust and innovation by demonstrating a positive effect of trust on patenting. This contrasts many findings from organization level studies on trust and innovation, who report a variety of findings including inverted-U type relations. A possible explanation is that trust exhibits different roles in invention and innovation, as the former relies on knowledge commons while the latter directly embeds commercialization and the market context. This study attempts to reconcile the two set of findings by studying indicators of invention and innovation in relation to trust at the same unit of observation, by using the regional variation in Europe. I study the relationship between interpersonal trust and patent applications (a measure of invention), trademark applications (a composite indicator) and the share of innovative sales in turnover by SMEs (a direct indicator of commercialization), across European regions. I show that trust positively affects trademark applications with an effect that is comparable to that on patent applications. However, trust exhibits an inverted-U type relationship with innovative sales. Results collectively point to a strong role of trust in all three creative activities, including a negative effect at the higher end when the indicator is directly contingent on commercialization and sales. I also estimate the extent of spatial spillovers in the effect of trust on all three creative outcomes.