Knowledge flows through informal contacts in industrial clusters: myth or reality?

The role of informal networks in the development of regional clusters has received a lot of attention in the literature recently. Informal contact between employees in different firms is argued to be one of the main carriers of knowledge between firms in a cluster. This paper empirically examines the role of informal contacts in a specific cluster. In a recent questionnaire, we ask a sample of engineers in a regional cluster of wireless communication firms in Northern Denmark, a series of questions on informal networks. We analyze whether the engineers actually acquire valuable knowledge through these networks. We find that the engineers do share even valuable knowledge with informal contacts. This shows that informal contacts are important channels of knowledge diffusion.

[1]  Reinhard Lund,et al.  Organizational and Innovative Flexibility Mechanisms and their Impact upon Organizational Effectiveness , 1998 .

[2]  Nicolai Juul Foss,et al.  Understanding Leadership : A Coordination Theory , 1999 .

[3]  Ron Martin,et al.  Paul Krugman's Geographical Economics and Its Implications for Regional Development Theory: A Critical Assessment* , 1996 .

[4]  Robin Cowan,et al.  The dynamics of collective invention , 2003 .

[5]  N. Foss Capabilities and the Theory of the Firm , 1996 .

[6]  N. Foss,et al.  Austrian and Post-Marshallian Economics: The Bridging Work of George Richardson , 1996 .

[7]  Peter Maskell,et al.  Towards a Knowledge‐based Theory of the Geographical Cluster , 2001 .

[8]  Gert Villumsen,et al.  Are OECD Export Specialization Patterns 'Sticky?' Relations to the Convergence-Divergence Debate , 1996 .

[9]  Jukka Kaisla,et al.  The Market Process and the Emergence of the Firm Some Indications of Entrepreneurship Under Genuine uncertainty , 1998 .

[10]  Peter Maskell,et al.  Firm growth from a knowledge structure perspective , 1999 .

[11]  G. Becattini,et al.  Industrial districts and inter-firm co-operation in Italy , 1990 .

[12]  Gert Villumsen,et al.  The Long Term Development of OECD Export Specialisation Patterns De-Specialisation and Stickiness , 1996 .

[13]  Margherita Russo,et al.  Technical change and the industrial district: The role of interfirm relations in the growth and transformation of ceramic tile production in Italy , 1985 .

[14]  Maxine Berg,et al.  Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making 1801-1885 , 1987 .

[15]  Keld Laursen,et al.  Do export and technological specialisation patterns co-evolve in terms of convergence or divergence? Evidence from 19 OECD countries, 1971–1991 , 2000 .

[16]  Önder Nomaler,et al.  Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics Technological Diffusion Patterns and Their Effects on Industrial Dynamics Technological Diffusion Patterns and Their Effects on Industrial Dynamics , 2022 .

[17]  Stefano Breschi,et al.  Localised knowledge spillovers vs. innovative milieux: Knowledge “tacitness” reconsidered , 2001 .

[18]  Nicolai Juul Foss,et al.  Organizing Economic Experiments The Role of Firms , 1999 .

[19]  Keld Laursen The impact of technological opportunity on the dynamics of trade performance , 1999 .

[20]  Fulvio Castellacci,et al.  A Technology-gap Approach to Cumulative Growth -Toward an Integrated Model Empirical Evidence for Spain, 1960-1997 , 2001 .

[21]  M. Præst,et al.  An Empirical Model of Firm Behaviour: a Dynamic Approach to Competence Accumulation and Strategic Behaviour an Empirical Model of Firm Behaviour: a Dynamic Approach to Competence Accumulation and Strategic Behaviour , 2022 .

[22]  Dieter Ernst,et al.  Catching-up Crisis and Industrial Upgrading: Evolutionary Aspects of Technological Learning in Korea's Electronics Industry , 1998 .

[23]  Nicolai J. Foss,et al.  The Market Process and The Firm: Toward a Dynamic Property Rights Perspective , 1998 .

[24]  M. Feldman The New Economics Of Innovation, Spillovers And Agglomeration: Areview Of Empirical Studies , 1999 .

[25]  Francesco Lissoni,et al.  Knowledge codification and the geography of innovation: the case of Brescia mechanical cluster , 2001 .

[26]  Volker Mahnke,et al.  Global Strategy and the Acquisition of Local Knowledge How MNCs Enter Regional Knowledge Clusters , 2002 .

[27]  Staffan Jacobsson,et al.  A Method for Identifying Actors in a Knowledge Based Cluster , 2000 .

[28]  Nicolai J. Foss,et al.  Economic Organization in the Knowledge Economy Some Austrian Insights , 2005 .

[29]  John A. Czepiel Word-of-Mouth Processes in the Diffusion of a Major Technological Innovation , 1974 .

[30]  M. Granger Morgan,et al.  The Transfer and Utilization of Technical Knowledge , 1983 .

[31]  V. Meliciani,et al.  The importance of technology-based intersectoral linkages for market share dynamics , 2000 .

[32]  Nicolai J. Foss,et al.  Capabilities, Confusion, and the Costs of Coordination On Some Problems in Recent Research On Inter-Firm Relations , 1999 .

[33]  Rodrigo Arocena,et al.  Interactive Learning Spaces and Development Policies in Latin America , 2000 .

[34]  Kirsten Foss,et al.  A Transaction Cost Perspective on the Influence of Standards on Product Development: Examples from the Fruit and Vegetable Market , 1996 .

[35]  Jens Frøslev Christensen,et al.  A Process Approach to Corporate Coherence , 1996 .

[36]  Juliana Hsuan Mikkola,et al.  Modularization assessment of product architecture , 2000 .

[37]  Mark Sanders,et al.  Skill-biased technical change: theoretical concepts, empirical problems and a survey of the evidence , 2000 .

[38]  M. Feldman,et al.  R&D spillovers and the ge-ography of innovation and production , 1996 .

[39]  N. Foss Thorstein B. Veblen: Precursor of the Competence-Based Approach to the Firm , 1996 .

[40]  Luigi Marengo,et al.  Towards A Characterization Of Assets And Knowledge Created In Technological Agreements: Some Evidence From The Automobile Robotics Sector , 2000 .

[41]  P. Krugman Geography and Trade , 1992 .

[42]  G. Yoguel,et al.  The environment in the development of firms' innovative capacities: Argentine industrial SMEs from different local systems , 2000 .

[43]  Michael Borrus,et al.  You Don't Have to Be A Giant: How The Changing Terms of Competition in Global Markets are Creating New Possibilities For Danish Companies , 1997 .

[44]  A. Chandler,et al.  Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 , 1994 .

[45]  Dieter Ernst,et al.  What Permits Small Firms to Compete in High-Tech Industries? Inter-Organizational Knowledge Creation in the Taiwanese Computer Industry , 1998 .

[46]  Paul A. David,et al.  The explicit economics of knowledge codification and tacitness , 2000 .

[47]  Lucia Cusmano,et al.  Technology Policy and Co-operative R&D the role of Relational Research Capacity , 2000 .

[48]  Kenneth Mølbjerg Jørgensen,et al.  Information Technology and Change in Danish Organizations , 1998 .

[49]  Esben Sloth Andersen,et al.  The Nelson and Winter Models Revisited: Prototypes for Computer-Based Reconstruction of Schumpeterian Competition , 1996 .

[50]  Marco S. Giarratana,et al.  Competence Accumulation and Collaborative Ventures Evidence from the Largest European Electronics Firms and Implications for the EU Technological Policies , 2001 .

[51]  Ron Martin,et al.  Critical survey. The new 'geographical turn' in economics: some critical reflections , 1999 .

[52]  Morris Teubal,et al.  Restructuring and Embeddeness Of Business Enterprises - Towards An Innovation System Perspective On Diffusion Policy , 1997 .

[53]  Anne P. Carter,et al.  Knowhow trading as economic exchange , 1989 .

[54]  Soren Nymark,et al.  Value-based Management in Learning Organizations Through 'Hard' and 'Soft' Managerial Approaches: The case of Hewlett-Packard , 2000 .

[55]  R. Langlois,et al.  Capabilities and Governance: The Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization , 1997 .

[56]  W. Edward Steinmueller,et al.  Will New Information and Communication Technologies Improve the 'Codification' of Knowledge? , 2000 .

[57]  Dieter Ernst,et al.  Responses to the Crisis Constraints to a Rapid Trade Adjustment in East Asia´s Electronics Industry , 2001 .

[58]  Dieter Ernst,et al.  Partners for the China Circle? The Asian Production Networks of Japanese Electronics Firms , 1997 .

[59]  R. Allen,et al.  Collective Invention , 1982 .

[60]  Bengt-Åke Lundvall,et al.  Organisational change, innovation and human resource Development as a response to increased competition , 1997 .

[61]  E. Hippel Cooperation between Rivals: Informal Know-How Trading , 1987 .

[62]  E. Lorenz,et al.  Societal Effects and the Transfer of Business Practices to Britain and France Societal Effects and the Transfer of Business Practices to Britain and France , 2022 .

[63]  S. Klepper Employee Startups in High‐Tech Industries , 2001 .

[64]  Alessandro Nuvolari,et al.  Collective Invention during the British Industrial Revolution The Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine , 2004 .

[65]  Ken Ducatel,et al.  Learning and Skills in the Knowledge Economy , 1998 .

[66]  D. Teece Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy , 1993 .

[67]  Esben Sloth Andersen,et al.  The Evolution of the Organisation of Industry , 1998 .

[68]  John A. Martilla Word-of-Mouth Communication in the Industrial Adoption Process , 1971 .

[69]  Allan Næs Gjerding,et al.  Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics Organisational Innovation in the Danish Private Business Sector Organisational Innovation in the Danish Private Business Sector , 2022 .

[70]  Naomi R. Lamoreaux,et al.  The Geography of Invention in the American Glass Industry, 1870–1925 , 2000 .

[71]  Esben Sloth Andersen,et al.  The Evolution of an Industrial Sector with a Varying Degree of Roundaboutness of Production , 1996 .

[72]  M. Enright Regional Clusters: What We Know and What We Should Know , 2003 .

[73]  Nicolai J. Foss,et al.  Equilibrium vs Evolution in the Resource-Based Perspective The Conflicting Legacies of Demsetz and Penrose , 2005 .

[74]  Toby E. Stuart,et al.  Syndication Networks and the Spatial Distribution of Venture Capital Investments1 , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[75]  Nicolai Juul Foss,et al.  The Resource-Based Perspective: An Assessment and Diagnosis of Problems , 1998 .

[76]  Dieter Ernst,et al.  High-Tech Competition Puzzles. How Globalization Affects Firm Behavior and Market Structure in the Electronics Industry , 1998 .

[77]  Jens Frøslev Christensen The Dynamics of the Diversified Corporation and the Role of Central Management of Technology , 1998 .

[78]  Estelle Brodman,et al.  Managing the Flow of Technology: Technology Transfer and the Dissemination of Technological Information Within the R&D Organization (Book Review) , 1978 .

[79]  Anders Malmberg,et al.  Competitiveness, Localised Learning and Regional Development: Specialization and Prosperity in Small Open Economies , 1998 .

[80]  J. Mathews COMPETITIVE INTERFIRM DYNAMICS WITHIN AN INDUSTRIAL MARKET SYSTEM , 2001 .

[81]  G. Richardson,et al.  Economic Analysis, Public Policy and the Software Industry , 1997 .

[82]  Adolfo Nemirovsky,et al.  Dynamics of High-Technology Firms in the Silicon Valley , 2001 .

[83]  Dieter Ernst,et al.  Information Technology in the Learning Economy: Challenges for Developing Countries , 2004 .

[84]  Nicolai Juul Foss,et al.  Austrian Economics and Game Theory a Preliminary Methodological Stocktaking , 1998 .

[85]  S. Breschi,et al.  Knowledge Spillovers And Local Innovation Systems: A Critical Survey , 2001 .