local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation

The version of record [Bathelt, H., Malmberg, A., & Maskell, P. (2004). Clusters and knowledge: Local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation. Progress in Human Geography, 28(1), 31-56.] is available online at: http://phg.sagepub.com/content/28/1/31 [doi: 10.1191/0309132504ph469oa]The paper is concerned with spatial clustering of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in interactive learning processes. It questions the view that tacit knowledge transfer is confined to local milieus whereas codified knowledge may roam the globe almost frictionlessly. The paper highlights the conditions under which both tacit and codified knowledge can be exchanged locally and globally. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, the learning processes taking place among actors embedded in a community by just being there dubbed buzz and, on the other, the knowledge attained by investing in building channels of communication called pipelines to selected providers located outside the local milieu. It is argued that the co-existence of high levels of buzz and many pipelines may provide firms located in outward-looking and lively clusters with a string of particular advantages not available to outsiders. Finally, some policy implications, stemming from this argument, are identified

Twin Brothers in Marshallian Thought: Knowledge and organization

The development of Marshallian thought in the realm of business theory has contributed to the appearance of a new branch of economic theory: Industrial Organization, as pioneered by Stigler. This theory relies, to a large degree, on the idea that a mutually beneficial relationship is produced in the industrial environment between the creation of new information and the organizational improvement of related firms. This symbiosis between knowledge and organization is the driving principle behind the 'industrial districts' which Marshall announced a century ago, and is most recently embodied in the contemporary industrial clusters such as Silicon Valley. However, Marshall distances himself from his equilibrium model when dealing with the issues of obtaining and managing information within the firm itself, creating a weak link in his own argument.

Understanding markets

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Post-print version

The resource-based view (RBV) and the dynamic-capabilities approach (DCA) have emerged as two important frameworks in strategic management that seek to explain why firms are different. In recent years operations management scholars have sought to integrate both RBV and DCA within the field¿s epistemological orientation to provide normative frameworks for practising managers. This paper argues that the structure of resources and capabilities are such that they present impediments to normative prescriptions. Using ideas from complex systems it argues that any framework for thinking about resource accumulation and capability development must take account of uncertainty and knowledge imperfections in the system. The paper contends that the real options framework is an appropriate heuristic for managing the process of capability development and a case study of a manufacturing operation is used to illustrate our ideas