Knowledge Spillovers in a Regional Ecosystem: Cognitive Interaction in an Industrial Complex
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Knowledge Spillovers in a Regional Ecosystem: Cognitive Interaction in an Industrial Complex A CASE STUDY INTO CROSS-OVER ACTIVITY IN THE ARNHEM, NIJMEGEN, WAGENINGEN REGION Ruben Barnhoorn THE ECONOMIC BOARD | THE RADBOUD UNIVERSITY 0 Knowledge Spillovers in a Regional Ecosystem: Cognitive Interaction in an Industrial Complex A CASE STUDY INTO CROSS-OVER ACTIVITY IN THE ARNHEM, NIJMEGEN, WAGENINGEN REGION Ruben Barnhoorn Student number 4159403 Radboud University Faculty of Management Sciences Master Human Geography Specialization: Economic Geography Supervisor: Prof. dr. A. Lagendijk The Economic Board Research internship Supervisor: S. Helbig i ii Preface Hereby I proudly present the culmination of my academic career, my master thesis research. With the finishing of my thesis, I officially am ready to transition over from my days as a student to the beginning of my professional career. The different internships I have done combined with the years I spent at the university have formed me into the person I am today. Over the course of the years, with the passing years, it became ever more apparent what path I would take within the field of human geography. Now after finishing my thesis, I feel confident in saying I am qualified to call myself an economic geographer. This result could never have come into existence without the persons who agreed for me to interview them. I would also like to thank my internship organization The Economic Board and my thesis supervisor Arnoud Lagendijk for believing in me and helping me in realizing the final product. Lastly I would like to thank my wife Alisa for supporting me in my study endeavors, allowing me to focus on finishing my thesis and graduating. My time at the Economic Board has been extremely invaluable, I was not treated as an intern but as a full- fledged employee. This has helped me develop myself as a young professional. At the same time it increased the expectations that people had of me. I relish the opportunities that have been given to me. iii Abstract This thesis aims to contribute to the body of industrial complex literature as well as the related variety literature. The thesis addresses how related and unrelated industries within a regional ecosystem are able to make use of regional knowledge spillovers through means of cross-over activities. By analyzing the embeddedness of firms, this thesis determines the added value of the regional context in both their core business as well as their cross-over activities. This thesis builds on the works of Hess (2004) and Granovetter (1985) with regard to how the research uses and defines the term embeddedness. For inter-firm interaction to be possible, e.g. to engage in cross-over activity, firms need to have a degree of cognitive proximity in order to be able to understand each other (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). A firm’s absorptive capacity determines to what degree external knowledge can be utilized to expand that firm’s technological knowledge base. The thesis uses both inductive research methods (Markusen, 1996), as well as deductive research methods (Gordon & McCann, 2002; Tully & Townsend, 2002). The former is used to analyze the stickiness of the region and the spatial structuring of the clustering, while the latter is used to for a more process orientated view on the spatial structuring. The area of interest of this research, the case study area, is the Arnhem, Nijmegen & Wageningen region. Governmental policy in this region focuses on the food, health and energy sectors. This research has expanded the focus to also include the bio-based and semi- conductor / high-tech sectors. The main anchor points for the regional ecosystem are the two universities in the region in case of the food and health sectors. The semi-conductor / high- tech sector as well as the energy sector have their primary knowledge base outside of the region, this combined with the fact that capable personnel is hard to find regionally, threatens the regional embedding of these sectors in the long term. Cross-overs do not occur on a systematic basis, instead the hyper-local scale seems to be the optimal scale for stimulating cross-over activity. At the hyper-local scale, the scale of the campus and the industrial park, knowledge spillovers are more likely to occur. The proximity allows firms of different backgrounds to have a greater understanding of where they can potentially be complementary to each other, to achieve synergy. Firms in this study displayed the characteristics that are in line with the social-network model as developed by Gordon and McCann (2002). Moreover they displayed a high degree of network embeddedness, which bolsters their absorptive capacity. For firms to achieve local synergies, they need to be connected through such local networks. However the potential for related diversification effect or related variety as a business model is for the most part still underdeveloped. Despite the fact that the different sectors display areas of overlap, most of the R&D and investments remain for the core business, cross-overs are as of right now, still an afterthought. iv Index Preface ................................................................................................................................................... iii Abstract ................................................................................................................................................. iv Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Background ................................................................................................................................. 9 1.2 Scientific relevance ................................................................................................................... 10 1.3 Societal relevance...................................................................................................................... 10 1.4 Internship ................................................................................................................................... 12 1.5 Research objectives and research questions ......................................................................... 12 2. Theoretical framework ............................................................................................................... 14 2.1 Industrial complex ................................................................................................................. 14 2.1.1 Clusters or sectors.............................................................................................................. 14 2.1.2 The Marshallian district and the Italian district ............................................................ 15 2.1.2.1 The characteristics of an Marshallian industrial district ....................................... 15 2.1.3 Sticky places in slippery space......................................................................................... 16 2.1.3.1 The hub-and-spoke district ....................................................................................... 18 2.1.3.2 The satellite platform ................................................................................................. 19 2.1.3.3 The state-centered district ......................................................................................... 20 2.1.3.4 Sticky mixes ................................................................................................................. 21 2.1.4 Deductive cluster analysis ................................................................................................ 22 2.1.4.1 The pure agglomeration model ................................................................................ 22 2.1.4.2 The industrial-complex model .................................................................................. 22 2.1.4.3 The social-network model ......................................................................................... 23 2.1.4.4 Embeddedness ............................................................................................................ 24 2.2 Technological relatedness and cognitive proximity ............................................................ 25 2.2.1 Technological relatedness ................................................................................................ 25 2.2.2 Related Variety ................................................................................................................... 26 2.2.3 Knowledge transfer within an industrial complex ....................................................... 27 2.2.4 Absorptive capacity, cognitive proximity ...................................................................... 28 2.2.5 Cross-overs ......................................................................................................................... 29 3. Conceptual model and operationalization ................................................................................. 30 3.1 Conceptual model .................................................................................................................... 30 3.1.1 Firm level ............................................................................................................................ 31 v 3.1.2 Institutional framework .................................................................................................... 31 3.1.3 Inter-firm