Darrene Hackler

DIVERSITY, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

ABSTRACT: In recent years, the field of regional economic analysis has focused on the social and cultural environment of a place to explain variations in innovation activity, entrepreneurial dynamics, and economic growth. Prominent among these studies is Richard Florida’s creative class theory. He argues that urban economies grow because they are tolerant, diverse, and open to creativity, which in turn attracts certain groups of people, the so-called creative class. Lee, Florida, and Acs expand the theory into the realm of entrepreneurship. They argue that new firm formation is positively associated with a creative and diverse social environment. In other words, those regions that are alluring to creative talent, open to newcomers, and tolerant of those who are different, will also have more people taking the risk of founding a firm, leading to increased economic growth. The creative class theories, however, contrast with explanations that consider structural factors such as access to financial resources and markets, among others, as important markers of entrepreneurial success. In this article, we are interested in examining the ways in which a region’s creative milieu and its opportunity structures may help or hinder different kinds of entrepreneurs, in particular nontraditional entrepreneurs. We examine the effect of regional opportunity structures and creative milieu on women, Black, and Hispanic business ownership for the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the United States in 2002. We find that opportunity structures, whether opportunity or barrier, better explain the dynamics for these entrepreneurs. They benefit from a regional environment that builds human capital and skill base, enables access to a variety of financial resources, and facilitates market access. Given the growth of women and minority businesses and their potential effect on regions, policymakers are well advised to tailor their policies to these groups.

Invisible Infrastructure and the City The Role of Telecommunications in Economic Development

This article explores the linkage between telecommunications infrastructure and high-tech industry growth in cities of two metropolitan areas, Minneapolis—St. Paul, Minnesota and Phoenix, Arizona. Results indicate that cities with greater telecommunications capacity are more likely to have positive growth in high-tech industry and all sectors analyzed. Yet, the results also suggest that while we often think of high-tech industry as a single entity, it is important to disaggregate the industry to determine whether certain production processes and services make the firm react differently to telecommunications as a location factor. Where high-tech firms are locating and the degree to which telecommunications infrastructure is attractive to these firms is of great import given that cities desire to take part in the New Economy. The findings suggest that local policy makers may have more success in attracting high-tech business that fit the city’s current telecommunications profile.

High‐Tech Location in Five Metropolitan Areas

ABSTRACT: This study addresses the intersection between local priorities to become a high-tech haven and how local policies affect the locational decisions of high-tech industry. The study compares the relative importance of local location determinants for high- and low-tech manufacturing in the cities of five metropolitan areas. Results indicate that high-tech manufacturing does not react significantly different from low-tech manufacturing. Given that cities continue to desire high-tech industry, these findings are useful to local policy makers seeking to understand what attracts that industry.

High-Technology and Regions in an Era of Open Innovation

The U.S. economy benefits greatly from the production of knowledge into economically useful innovations. However, a dramatic shift has occurred in how ideas are commercialized. Closed innovation, where internal research and development (R&D) labs of large companies control future discoveries, has faded. Today, it is more common that innovations evolve externally of the commercializing firm because of open innovation activities like licensing agreements. The changes in dynamics of innovation can create large opportunities for small business and entrepreneurs, yet the research on how nascent entrepreneurs utilize open innovation and how the regional social and economic environment affects this process is understudied in our time of global and regional competition. The paper examines open innovation strategy in nascent firms to explain how it varies in different technology industries, by a firm’s R&D capacity, an entrepreneur’s human capital and gender, and regional characteristics. The paper utilizes the largest longitudinal study of new businesses, the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS). The results suggest that high-technology firms differ in terms of how firm and regional characteristics affect their likelihood of utilizing more open innovation strategies, and regional effects are consequential to all firms, but especially to high-technology firms. The paper informs the body of entrepreneurship research addressing innovation and high-technology economic development and furthers regional policy development to support nascent open innovation dynamics.

Industrial Location in the Information Age

Information technology (IT) has become a popular means to attain goals for entities such as businesses, governments, communities, and even individuals. While the effects of IT are frequently prophesized, IT is invisible and its hard-to-measure nature stymies most systematic attempts to unravel the causal process. Given the difficulty of studying IT, the central premise of the research is to examine whether IT has the effect on firms that popular literature has noted. Consequently, this chapter investigates how IT affects firms with a theoretical and empirical analysis of industrial location.