Steven Pinch

Spatialising knowledge: placing the knowledge community of Motor Sport Valley

Abstract Within the contemporary world of ‘the knowledge economy’, understanding the spatial organisation of knowledge production has become a key issue. Drawing on recent emphases in economic geography on the cultural construction and social embeddedness of economic success, this paper outlines an attempt to understand one form of spatial organisation of knowledge – the agglomeration or cluster – using the analytical concept of ‘the knowledge community’. Using the example of Motor Sport Valley, the paper provides an empirical and methodological example of how one might place a knowledge community. The British motor sport industry dominates its world of production with a regional agglomeration, Motor Sport Valley, centred on Oxfordshire and stretching into East Anglia and down into Surrey. The paper provides empirical demonstration of the processes of knowledge generation and dissemination constituting the space (and knowledge community) of Motor Sport Valley. The paper recognises also the need to contextualise the ‘microfoundations’ of knowledge communities within a greater political economic system.

Worlds of welfare : understanding the changing geographies of social welfare provision

Throughout the world welfare systems have been experiencing a period of unprecedented change. Understanding these changes is difficult, not only because of their diversity, but also because they vary so much from place to place. Worlds of Welfare provides a clear and concise guide to these changes. The first part of the book examines the range of different welfare states around the world, describing the various reforms - such as privatisation and commercialisation - which have been introduced in recent years. The second part of the book tests the many theoretical perspectives for understanding such social change. The book concludes with an exploration of the future of the welfare state in multicultural societies. Clearly written, with an extensive glossary of key terms, the book demonstrates how a geographical perspective is crucial to understanding the diversity of welfare reform. Worlds of Welfare will be of interest to all concerned for the future of welfare services.

Discursive Aspects of Technological Innovation: The Case of the British Motor-Sport Industry:

A discursive approach to technological innovation recognises that scientific and technical innovations are the products of groups of people. The subject of this paper is how this insight from the sociology of scientific knowledge can make a contribution to debates in economic geography. Principally drawing on the work of social constructionists, this approach is used to provide insights into the reasons for both the creation and the maintenance of the geographical agglomeration of small firms constituted by the British motor-sport industry.

DESIGN SPACES: AGGLOMERATION AND CREATIVITY IN BRITISH DESIGN AGENCIES

Abstract. Although there is a growing body of research into the cultural and creative industries, little work has focused specifically upon on the geography of design and its role in regional economies. The relative neglect of the geography of the UK design industry is surprising given recent assertions about the sectors role in national economic competitiveness; its contribution to product innovation; and its importance as an urban regeneration resource. This paper explicitly considers the extent to which existing conceptualizations of agglomeration and creativity provide insights into the realm of design. Our discussion reflects upon recent surveys of the design sector and analyses current design organization membership data, both of which reveal an overwhelming concentration of design activities in London and the South East. Our analysis of the strategies, organization and practices of agencies in London reveals that a number of the key features associated with cultural industries in general are significantly less discernible within design.

Explaining industrial agglomeration: the case of the British high-fidelity industry

This paper examines the insights into debates about regional agglomeration provided by the British high-fidelity industry (BHFI). This geographical cluster of small specialist companies displays world leadership in the sphere of high-quality sound reproduction but only weak elements of institutional thickness, and limited inter-firm interactions. There is, however, some evidence in this industry of collective learning, untraded interdependencies and indirect institutional support in the form of government infrastructure in previous decades. Localised interdependencies, both of the traded and the untraded kind, play an important role in fostering clustering of these hi-fi companies but much of the propinquity can be attributed to inertia effects as founders establish new businesses near their old companies and, or, their place of residence. The clustering of hi-fi companies in the south-east is therefore largely a reflection of the concentration of elite technical personnel in this region. The analysis suggests that, in the case of the BHFI, the key elements of institutional thickness are constituted by the firm and the labour market.

Social Polarization: A Comparison of Evidence from Britain and the United States:

In this paper, evidence from Britain and the United States concerning social polarization is compared. Two major approaches to the subject are identified: the first, most extensively developed in the United States, is focused upon occupational shifts and their impact upon the earnings paid to individuals; and the second, which has emerged in Britain, is focused upon households and all the types of work undertaken within them. These approaches and their differing implications for polarization—the first approach suggesting a ‘disappearing middle’ and the second approach a growing ‘underclass’—are related to differing social and economic circumstances in Britain and the United States. Both approaches are applied to a household survey of the economically active in Southampton. The survey indicates that social polarization is a result both of sectoral shifts in the local economy and of changing household structures. A number of contrasts between labour-market influences upon polarization in the United States and Britain are highlighted.

Knowledge and clusters

Clusters and Globalisation brings together scholars with different perspectives and theoretical groundings, and from different disciplines, to consider conceptual arguments and case study material. In doing so the volume identifies key characteristics and requirements of the forms of cluster that are especially significant for the attainment of economic success in a globalising world.

Growth coalitions and local economic development strategy in southern England: A case study of the Hampshire Development Association

Abstract This paper examines the utility of the concept of urban growth coalitions for understanding the origins, development and demise of the Hampshire Development Association. The analysis reveals a remarkable number of apparent similarities with the model of growth coalitions postulated by Logan and Molotch to exist in the US including: growth orientation; property sector bias; an ideology of value-free development; the importance of local ‘political entrepreneurship’; and token representation of non-capitalist interests. However, a closer examination reveals a number of differences between the HDA and US growth coalitions. These patterns largely reflect the differing character of the local government systems in the UK and the USA but the common elements suggest universal pressures in an era of intense competition for mobile capital.

Redundancy in an Expanding Labour Market: A Case-study of Displaced Workers from Two Manufacturing Plants in Southampton

Previous studies of redundancy have been derived from a restricted geographical base; they have been predominantly concerned with workers made redundant by manufacturing firms in older industrial regions and have largely ignored redundancies in more buoyant labour market areas. This paper examines the post-redundancy experience of workers made redundant by two large manufacturing firms in Southampton in the mid-1980s. Comparison with previous studies of redundancy in less prosperous labour markets in northern regions of the UK highlights contrasts in the proportions of workers finding alternative employment and in rates of pay, working conditions and levels of job satisfaction. The study also highlights the importance of gender in post-redundancy experience, another factor that has been neglected in previous studies.

Understanding the role of venture capitalists in knowledge dissemination in high-technology agglomerations: a case study of the University of Southampton spin-off cluster

This project examines the role of venture capitalists (VCs) as disseminators of knowledge in the cluster of high-technology businesses that have spun off from research undertaken at the University of Southampton UK. The analysis was inspired by work of Zook on the Internet industry in the San Francisco Bay Area of the US. This research suggested that it was not just the amount of venture capital that was available in the region that led to its prominence but also the technical and commercial acumen on the part of the local VCs that gave their investees a key advantage in the Internet industry. In contrast, this study of Southampton spin-outs found no equivalent cluster-based infrastructure spreading technical knowledge. The knowledge spread by UK VCs tended to consist of business advice, the evaluation of commercial strategy and the recruitment and scrutiny of key company personnel. Despite many recent initiatives in the UK, many start-up firms reported a relative shortage of experienced early stage investors who were willing and able to act as ‘company builders’. The results suggest that while investors in the Southampton case provide valuable general business and commercial knowledge, there is little evidence that they supply specialist and tacit knowledge via strong relational partnerships. In the context of some of the difficulties and ambiguities pertaining to spin-out experiences with venture capital, the paper documents how a university has turned to an institutionalised partnership with an intellectual property commercialisation firm.