Universities, regional policy and the knowledge economy

This article focuses on the spatial clustering dimension of new information and communications technology (ICT)-driven economic activity based on knowledge industries and especially the tacit knowledge synergies to be achieved through networking in geographical space. The article first details the new knowledge economy, reviewing claims made for its distinctiveness and its role in raising levels of productivity before turning to a brief study of the clustering effects of new ICT-driven economic activity and the development of policies designed to enhance regional development. The remainder of the article details a case study – Univercities: the Manchester Knowledge Capital Initiative – in the North-west of the United Kingdom based on recent research into the attempt to create a ‘Knowledge Capital’ within the Greater Manchester conurbation, which is designed to position Manchester at the heart of the knowledge economy

Structural Regularities in Text-based Entity Vector Spaces

Entity retrieval is the task of finding entities such as people or products in response to a query, based solely on the textual documents they are associated with. Recent semantic entity retrieval algorithms represent queries and experts in finite-dimensional vector spaces, where both are constructed from text sequences. We investigate entity vector spaces and the degree to which they capture structural regularities. Such vector spaces are constructed in an unsupervised manner without explicit information about structural aspects. For concreteness, we address these questions for a specific type of entity: experts in the context of expert finding. We discover how clusterings of experts correspond to committees in organizations, the ability of expert representations to encode the co-author graph, and the degree to which they encode academic rank. We compare latent, continuous representations created using methods based on distributional semantics (LSI), topic models (LDA) and neural networks (word2vec, doc2vec, SERT). Vector spaces created using neural methods, such as doc2vec and SERT, systematically perform better at clustering than LSI, LDA and word2vec. When it comes to encoding entity relations, SERT performs best.Comment: ICTIR2017. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM International Conference on the Theory of Information Retrieval. 201

Clustering and networking among small independent hotels: developments over ten years

This paper reports on networking activities amongst a cluster of independent hotels with a view to analysing key variables in network development for SMEs. A comparative, longitudinal element is introduced by reference to an earlier study of the same phenomenon, ten years earlier. Of particular interest is the influence of various forms of social capital in the development of informal networks and the inter-play between co-operation and competition over time. Given the time gap between the two studies, the effect of sectoral changes on network development is also examined. The research revisits and extends a previous study of many of the same hotels which were investigated in 1995 over their formal and informal links that were found to be influenced by such factors across two classifications - the business as unit (proximity, perceptions of quality) and the individual respondent (personal social networks and ethnicity). Extending that analysis, social capital concepts and relevant references to embedded networks and kinship groups and co-operative game rules will be introduced in this paper. A highly concentrated population of small, independent hotels in Central London had been identified in the previous research project and it is from this sample that the current research drew and extended its own sample of hotels. With such a high number of hotels in the area a mixture of ‘snowball’ sampling and self-selection was successfully employed. Of the original 29 hotels, 22 have been re-interviewed and complemented by another 19. Of the remainder of the original sample, several had subsequently merged or failed to survive the intervening period. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with owner-managers in all cases using a structured questionnaire that replicated as much as possible of the original questionnaire, with both open and closed questions to allow some individual expression on relevant topics. The quantitative data obtained will be analysed using UCINET software to generate visual representations of networks alongside statistical and cluster analyses. Both academic and policy implications are likely to arise from this research, such as novel insights from such an unique periodic comparison of networks development, the influence of social capital on (formal and informal) network activities and the changing influence and consolidation of hotel groups through mergers and franchising

Creating an entrepreneurial region: exploring the entrepreneurial capacity of the East Midlands

This paper explores the notion of the entrepreneurial region and, in particular, the relevance and appropriateness of this concept to the East Midlands. An outline framework is developed that depicts aspects and dimensions of an entrepreneurial region. This is then applied to the East MIdlands to gauge how entrepreneurial the region is

Informatics Research Institute (IRIS) September 2008 newsletter

2007-8 was a very busy year for IRIS. It was a bumper year for visiting Profs with Prof Michael Myers visiting from New Zealand, Prof Brian Fitzgerald visiting from University of Limerick, Ireland, Prof. Uzay Kaymak visiting from Erasmus University Netherlands and Prof Steve Sawyer visiting from Pennsylvania State University, USA. Their visits enriched our doctoral school, seminar programme workshops and our research. We were very lucky to have such a distinguished line up of visiting professors and we offer them hearty thanks and hope to keep ongoing research links with them

Feeling the squeeze? Tabbies or tigers: the case of social enterprises contracting in the fields of recycling and work integration

Current UK policy is encouraging the identification, emergence, transmutation or invention of third sector organisations that will have a social enterprise orientation with a particular focus on them as vehicles for the delivery of public services (Audit Commission 2005). This can be seen as part of the new governance agenda (Taylor, Wilkinson and Craig 2001, Kendal 2003, Stoker 2004) the form of which is still emergent. One view of governance refers to a 'hollowing out' of state powers (Rhodes, 1997) and a shift from state control to co-ordination using mechanisms such as networks and partnerships to bring together the public, private and third sector as well as community actors and citizens in reforming services. Local Authority white paper (2006) promised further decentralisation moving functions downwards to special purpose bodies and outwards to agencies and communities. The new Local Government White Paper emphasises the role of community engagement, partnership arrangements and devolved budgets with voluntary organisations at the local level (NCVO 2006: 2-3). Such processes are aimed both at both private and third sector providers. In this new distributed system of governance partnership and collaboration plays an important role in the implementation of social goods although these processes are never unproblematic (Huxham & Vangen 2000; Taylor Taylor, Wilkinson and Craig 2001). Nevertheless the contracting out processes continue to gather speed: with recycling and waste, care, leisure services, work advice, health services, prison and probation at various stages in the continuum of change. Against this background the role and form of social enterprise organisations appears at times to be assumed to be 'heterogeneous' and 'good' with all organisations tending towards similar development trajectories with uniform support needs. What is often not distinguished so clearly are the differing types of social enterprise; the different sub-sectors of the economy they are operating in; the variety of markets and funding regimes they are involved in; the different partnership regimes they are embedded within; and their different cultures and connection to local communities. All of these factors have implications for what types of organisations (large/small social enterprise; local/national organisations, and even social enterprise or private organisation) are favoured in the contracting processes and how such processes may affect their wider mission and ethos. Social enterprises are sometimes treated by policy makers, and at times by leaders, practitioners and researchers within the sector as if they were one thing. Crudely we might say they are treated as if they are all cats when in reality some are tigers and some are tabbys – with every breed in between. Nevertheless, despite the heterogeneity of the social enterprise scene we are seeing evidence of a convergence of form in contracting processes which, we argue, tends to favour the tigers and squeeze the tabbys. This paper reports on recent empirical research and analysis in 2 sub fields of social enterprise activity: (a) the delivery of waste and recycling services (Slater 2006) and (b) the delivery of work integration and advice activities for the disadvantaged (Aiken 2006, 2007)

Determinants and Policies to Foster the Competitiveness of SME Clusters: Evidence from Latin America

This paper attempts to identify key determinants of competitiveness in SME clusters, with especial reference to Latin America. It takes the debate forward as its extended framework adds country- and firm-level determinants to the existing cluster-level factors of the 'collective efficiency' approach. Based on an enlarged analytical framework, policies recommendations to foster clusters' competitiveness are provided at different levels. Empirical evidence strongly suggests that joint action may not be enough for clusters to face new competitive pressures. This confirms the narrow scope of the 'collective efficiency' approach, and suggests that policy intervention in Latin America should go beyond the mere promotion of inter-firm linkages to foster the competitiveness of SME clusters.

Czech machinery cluster and its role in sustainable development of Moravian-Silesian enterprises during the post-transformation era

The paper intends to contribute to the field of geographical economics by an extensive questionnaire survey carried out in Moravian-Silesian region, which represents one of territories of traditional industry in the Czech Republic. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and assess the co-operation among enterprises, educational institutions, and public administration from the perspective of sustainability in the Moravian-Silesian region during its post-transformation era. The article deals specifically with the Czech machinery cluster. The research question that lies behind the survey is as follows: Is the co-operation of entities present in the Czech machinery cluster beneficial to the parties involved? The contribution of the paper is in uncovering the role of this cluster in the sustainable development of Moravian-Silesian enterprises during post-transformation period. Since the Moravian-Silesian region is a typical old industrial region, which moreover underwent a difficult transformation process, there are numerous peculiarities in functioning of its enterprises. Machinery was traditionally one of the supportive pillars of regional industry and it is not surprising that the machinery cluster was created as the first one. Yet, regional characteristics lie behind specific trajectories towards economic sustainability. The above ways toward economic sustainability differ markedly from the concepts that are in vogue in developed western territories.Web of Science102art. no. 23

A new measure for community structures through indirect social connections

Based on an expert systems approach, the issue of community detection can be conceptualized as a clustering model for networks. Building upon this further, community structure can be measured through a clustering coefficient, which is generated from the number of existing triangles around the nodes over the number of triangles that can be hypothetically constructed. This paper provides a new definition of the clustering coefficient for weighted networks under a generalized definition of triangles. Specifically, a novel concept of triangles is introduced, based on the assumption that, should the aggregate weight of two arcs be strong enough, a link between the uncommon nodes can be induced. Beyond the intuitive meaning of such generalized triangles in the social context, we also explore the usefulness of them for gaining insights into the topological structure of the underlying network. Empirical experiments on the standard networks of 500 commercial US airports and on the nervous system of the Caenorhabditis elegans support the theoretical framework and allow a comparison between our proposal and the standard definition of clustering coefficient