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Buzz and tranquility, what matters for creativity? A case study of the online games industry in Shanghai
Abstract
While previous research on clusters has shed light on innovation at macro and meso levels, little research has, however, explored the impact of buzz for individual creativity. Additionally, the significance of tranquility and solitude for creativity also remains largely unexplored. To explore these two aspects, this paper examines forces that matter for the creativity of game workers in Shanghai. The results manifest that, online platforms and learning through projects play a noticeable role for the individual creativity of game developers. While the value of local buzz has been stressed much in the literature, it turns out to be less significant for the creativity of most creative workers. Similarly, the role of attending temporary events is found to be less important as it claimed to be. Whereas research on the impact of tranquility 2 and solitude for individual creativity has not been taken up sufficiently in economic geography, this research attaches high value to places and moments that creative workers can retreat from the buzzy environment to recover from attention fatigue.
... Past studies on individual creativity have revealed the fluctuation of creativity over time, and the effect of factors such as well-being, positive affect, or emotion (Petriglieri et al., 2019;Smith et al., 2022;Weinberger et al., 2018). However, these studies tend to pay less attention to the space-time relationships in creativity, despite these encounters being central to the way in which creativity emerges (Gong and Xin, 2019;Karwowski et al., 2021;Rutten, 2014). Here, geographers can contribute by examining how space, time, and socio-material relations enable, influence and disrupt creativity, and how the creative process emerges in everyday life. ...
... In fact, some participants emphasised that they distanced themselves from work in order to have more room for thoughts. Indeed, as Gong and Xin (2019) also found, creative individuals require tranquil moments and spaces to find balance in the buzzy and fast-paced environments. ...
... However, as past literature has also found, these tranquil and peaceful moments are essential in creative production (e.g. Csikszentmihalyi, 2008;Gong and Xin, 2019;Mainemelis, 2002). Although technology facilitates much of the creative work and enables many activities, it seems that the creative process also requires moments where such connections are absent. ...
... Against this backdrop, this paper aims to fill these gaps by looking into the intra-industry knowledge bases of a creative industry-online game industry, in which China has become one of the leading players in terms of market share and the number of leading firms (Kim and Kang, 2021). Although the online game industry is similar to the IT industry in the sense that both industries are highly dependent on information technologies, it has a strong creative nature--the design of gameplay and system, creation of storylines, and artistic work all require intensive creative inputs (Gong and Xin, 2019). Moreover, the marketing strategies based on deep knowledge of local culture have also contributed much to the catch-up of Chinese firms (Tsang and Tschang, 2012;Chew, 2016;Kim and Kang, 2021). ...
... In producing a creative game, several "communities of specialists" are involved in the production procedures: game designers, programmers, graphic artists, marketing and operational staff, etc. (Gong and Xin, 2019). All these communities, based on different knowledge bases (Plum and Hassink, 2014), are working on different parts of game production. ...
... In addition to game production, market-oriented innovation and efficient interaction with players, including game promotion, marketing, distribution, and service, is another key factor contributing to the commercial success of online games (Ström and Ernkvist, 2014;Chew, 2016;Zhu et al., 2021;Kim and Kang, 2021). Given the diverse knowledge bases these communities rest upon, we decompose the industry into different segments, i.e., design and content creation, programming, artistic creation, and product marketing (Gong and Xin, 2019). The overall catch-up narrative of the online game industry is thus divided into several catch-up narratives into these four respective segments. ...
Catch-up phenomena have been studied intensively in many manufacturing industries, but they have not been well explored in creative industries. Moreover, the internal heterogeneity of different segments within a specific industry has also largely been overlooked in the catch-up literature. This paper fills these gaps by analyzing the catch-up of a creative industry—the online game industry in China— and by extending the “windows of opportunity” framework with due account to the differentiated knowledge bases underpinning the value chain of the games industry. The findings show that the differentiated knowledge bases underlying this specific creative industry are combinatorial, and such combinations of different knowledge bases have led to distinct firm strategies in the different segments of game production (i.e. game design and content creation, programming, artistic creation, marketing) and catch-up outcomes (path skipping, following and creating). The introduction of the differentiated knowledge bases approach helps to provide a more nuanced understanding of catch-up in many industries where added-value are based on cultural tastes and symbolic knowledge, and thus leads to better policy implications for latecomers.
... They can rely on a collaborative network that includes close communication and knowledge sharing among digital creative talents. Digital creative talents can provide innovative digital creative designs, products, and services for the online business of creative enterprises [32] and promote the virtual agglomeration of creative industries. Therefore, the following assumptions are proposed: ...
... The digitization of cultural resources combines traditional cultural resources with advanced digital technologies such as virtual reality (VR), artificial reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, and others, which enlivens the static cultural resources originally displayed in museums and art galleries [33] and, at the same time, gives creative subjects the right to participate freely. Creative subjects can eliminate the physical space constraints and browse, learn, and use cultural resources online through the virtual network, to stimulate their creative inspiration [32]. In addition, under the authorization of digital cultural resources, creative enterprises can create and develop a series of digital creative derivative products, activate online R&D, production, sales, and consumption ecology of creative industries. ...
... In terms of improving the supply of talent, the government, universities, and enterprises should establish comprehensive measures from a digital creative talent project plan including talent introduction mechanisms and talent training model as well as other measures to continue talent transfusion for the virtual agglomeration of creative industries [61]. As far as talent creativity is concerned, society should expand the tolerance for digital creative talents, create a more relaxed creative atmosphere, and continue to activate their creative potential [32], thereby promoting the virtual agglomeration of creative industries to a deeper level. ...
Industrial agglomeration serves as an effective model for developing the creative economy and manifests itself as the interdependence of creative subjects in geographical space. The traditional methods of resource agglomeration have undergone tremendous changes due to the development of digital technology. These transformations have given birth to a new organizational form of the virtual agglomeration of creative industries. The present work uses field interviews and grounded theoretical research methods to construct a theoretical model of this new organizational phenomenon. Questionnaire surveys and empirical testing using structural equation models are here combined to systematically analyze the formation mechanism of the virtual agglomeration of creative industries. The results show that digital technology, virtual platforms, digital creative talents, digitization of cultural resources, and government policies have driven the formation of the virtual agglomeration of creative industries. This has been achieved through network collaboration, freedom of participation, and trust guarantee mechanisms. The effect of emerging consumer demand on the virtual agglomeration of creative industries is not significant. In addition, the implications of this research are also considered and discussed.
... First, little research has considered the components of creative spaces and the process to establish place-anchored networks between different types of creative spaces that may play different roles (Durmaz 2015). For instance, Gong and Xin (2019) found that local 'buzz' might not always be beneficial to creative production; indeed, in some cases, an environment of tranquillity and solitude is more important for creative workers like designers of online games. Moreover, there is contextual heterogeneity in local milieus of creativity and the formation of a creative 'middleground', concerning, in particular, a huge socio-political difference between West and East societies (Brown, Mczyski 2009;Darchen, Tremblay 2010;Faggian et al. 2014;He et al. 2018;Sibertin-Blanc 2020). ...
... They are all 'Wow!' when seeing the wedding site, thinking, 'It's incredible!'» Creative parks provide affordable workshops and a positive image for design enterprises As part of the creative incentives of Shanghai, the creative enterprises that chose to locate themselves in creative parks can enjoy a rentfree period or a period of preferential taxation (PD5). This government-led creative cluster is not necessarily beneficial to the collaborations and interactions between enterprises within the same creative park (Wei et al. 2016;Gong, Xin 2019). Nevertheless, these parks provide affordable workplaces for small and medium-sized enterprises, especially for start-up companies or studios, who are otherwise more likely to be excluded from the expensive central business district of Shanghai. ...
As an emerging global city, Shanghai has experienced significant growth in its creative economy over the past two decades. By reconstructing a large number of old constructions into creative industry clusters, Shanghai has attracted a significant number of creative talents from across the globe. Informed by the theoretical discourse on the social network- based understanding of the production of creative spaces, this paper engages in a semi-structured interview analysis to shed light on the formation mechanism of place-anchored networks in Shanghai’s design industries. Creative spaces for the design industry in Shanghai are largely concentrated in inner-city areas and consist of six functional types: design enterprises or studios, arts and creative parks, educational institutions, exhibition centres, social networking spaces, and cultural and business areas. These multi-layered creative spaces are formed through intensive social interactions, knowledge spillovers, and functional complementation among creative designers and institutions. Finally, the implications of place-anchored networks for creative industries are discussed within the context of the planning and design of creative cities.
... El desempeño creativo es un proceso cognitivo complejo que ocurre como resultado de unas mejores vivencias psicológicas (Amabile & Pillemer, 2012). Además, Boell et al. (2016) determinan que evitar las conversaciones innecesarias que se dan en el nivel presencial, la tranquilidad que proporciona el hogar a través de cierto aislamiento positivo (Gong & Xin, 2019) y evitar distractores fomentan una mayor profundidad de análisis que estimula de forma continua el pensamiento creativo. Paralelamente, autores como Diener et al. (2020) descubren que las emociones positivas se asocian con el desempeño creativo. ...
Esta investigación tiene como objetivo evaluar el efecto del teletrabajo sobre el desempeño creativo en empleados profesionales a través de tres variables mediadoras: la autonomía laboral, la autoeficacia y la autoeficacia creativa. La investigación aplica un diseño cuantitativo-correlacional. La muestra es de 448 empleados evaluados online. De los resultados destaca que el teletrabajo es un escenario idóneo para que los empleados con alta formación académica puedan ampliar su desempeño creativo. De hecho, la autonomía laboral, la autoeficacia y la autoeficacia creativa son tres características asociadas a la tarea o a la personalidad del individuo que intensifican esa relación actuando a modo de recurso laboral. Además, el trabajar dos o más días por semana de forma remota se asocia con un desempeño creativo estable. No obstante, el teletrabajo de baja intensidad, específicamente el de sólo un día, disminuye considerablemente la autopercepción de desempeño creativo. Por último, los resultados también revelan diferencias de género en la autoevaluación creativa, de manera que las mujeres tienen una conciencia de ideas originales sensiblemente inferior a los hombres, en especial, cuando sólo se teletrabaja un día por semana.
... Solitude can help people spark new ideas, gain insight into their basic values, solve problems more effectively, and feel calm and relaxed; the environment that allows them to be emotionally engaged may stimulate creativity. Previous studies have shown that creative workers who escape the noisy environment for attention recovery and spend time in a quiet space may produce enhanced creative performance [112]. The lack of space for solitude, reflection, and tranquility may hinder creative thinking [113]. ...
This study, based on the theory of restorative environmental, uses virtual reality (VR) technology to construct interactive restorative environments and discusses the influence of the experience of virtual restorative environment on individual creativity. A total of 72 college students were selected as participants in the study. Through psychological scales, three creativity tests, and EEG feedback data, the following conclusions were drawn: (1) The VR restorative environment experience improves individual creativity, especially the creative quality of cohesion; (2) the experience of the VR restorative environment enables participants to experience a desirable sense of presence. Compared with the restorative scene experience without interactive activities, the addition of interactive activities improves the individual sensory fidelity to a greater extent. (3) We cannot simply assume that the experience of the VR restorative environment with interactive activities will make individual creative performance better than non-interactive experience. Interaction with certain difficulty will increase cognitive load, thus disrupting individual creative performance. Garden scenes that can be explored freely and have no interaction can better promote individual creativity. (4) In the environmental experience, participants paid greater attention to natural elements, and the restorative environment they described was very similar to the environment they believed could foster creativity. This study’s results provide evidence for the positive effects of the VR restorative environment experience on individuals and contributes to the cognitive exploration of the interaction between restorative environments and individuals in the future.
... The positive benefits of solitude have been well documented (Coplan et al., 2018;Dixon, 2020;Long & Averill, 2003;Nguyen et al., 2018;Nguyen et al., 2019;Thomas & Azmitia, 2019). Benefits associated with time alone include avoiding over-stimulation (Suedfeld (1982), feelings of calmness (Nguyen et al., 2018), increased creativity (Gong & Xin, 2019;Long & Averill, 2003); Suedfeld, 1982), imaginative involvement (Barabasz, 1991), decreased self-consciousness (Larson, 1990), freedom of mental and physical choice (Long,200), free floating thoughts (Larson & Csikszentmihalyi, 1978), self-examination (Storr, 1989) and reflection (Koch, 1994). ...
People vary in the way in which they perceive, process and react to environmental
factors, and some are more or less sensitive than others. There is a dearth of research
investigating the possible impact that environmental sensitivity has in the postsecondary
education context. To address this gap in literature, the following research question was
posed: What impact does environmental sensitivity have on student learning in tertiary
education? To answer this question a two-stage mixed methods research project was
undertaken. The first stage involved two studies which used snowball recruitment via social
media, and subject inclusion criteria were current or previous postsecondary education
experience. Participants completed on-line surveys. Study One is the design, development
and validation of a self-report instrument measuring postsecondary students’ perceptions of
their learning success, and participants completed the Perceived Success in Study Survey
(PSISS) and associated demographic questions. Two phases were undertaken to check for
reliability of results, n=225 and n=237. Reliability statistics found a high level of internal
consistency, and principal component analysis identified five factors: Intellectual
Stimulation, Generic Skills, Work-life Balance; Commitment to Learning and Learning
Community. The PSISS was found to be a comprehensive measure of overall success for
postsecondary learners.
The participants in Study Two (n=365) completed the PSISS and the 12-item Highly
Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS-12, Pluess et al., 2020) and related demographic questions.
Independent T-tests, ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc calculations identified that high sensitivity
is positively associated with success-promoting attitudes and strategies as identified on three
of the five PSISS factors. It also found positive associations between total scores on the
PSISS and the sensitivity subscales of Aesthetic Sensitivity and Ease of Excitation
(Smolewska et al., 2006). This study included a response field to register interest in
participation in further research. Those who responded, and who rated as highly sensitive on
the HSPS-12, were invited to take part in a semi-structured interview, leading into the second
stage of the project. Thirteen Zoom interviews were conducted with participants from a broad
range of geographic locations and levels and fields of study in order to exemplify and
elaborate on the quantitative findings. Reflexive inductive thematic analysis was employed to
analyse the data, and sixteen codes and three themes were identified. Responses were written
vi
into a semantic narrative, accompanied by pertinent participant quotations, providing a rich
and detailed description of participant experience.
The results of this study confirmed that there are educational advantages contingent
with high sensitivity, including the use of a broad array of metacognitive study and self-care
strategies, and the prioritisation of wellbeing and work-life balance. Conversely, it also found
that numerous simultaneous study demands can lead to feelings of overwhelm, however, the
participants employed a comprehensive array of metacognitive coping strategies to manage
these. Low sensory thresholds associated with high sensitivity can present challenges for
highly sensitive students who can be negatively impacted by aspects of the physical learning
environments including light, noise, indoor environmental pollutants. Additionally,
participants highlighted the need for postsecondary institutions to provide education about
environmental sensitivity, to allow flexibility in teaching delivery, to explore options to
support students who may struggle with group-work and presentations, and to provide
assessment accommodations.
Overall, the project has identified a number of positive and negative associations
between levels of learner sensitivity and student success and suggests that education about
environmental sensitivity for students and teaching staff would be helpful for increasing
awareness about the benefits and challenges of environmental sensitivity. Institutional
commitment to providing optimal physical learning and social environments may enhance the
learning experience for all students. Finally, recommendations for policy, practice and
institutions highlight elements that will be of benefit to all students, most especially those
who sit at the high end of the sensitivity spectrum.
... This finding confirms the need to challenge the existing propositions that assume creativity is strictly urban, and that creative individuals and enterprises are spontaneously attracted by a distinctive feature endorsed by the social climate of a city's core as highlighted by He and Huang (2018). While physically 'being there' is argued to be critical for knowledge spillovers, the focus should not exclusively on places where many innovative things are happening every day, given that research should often be done in tranquil spaces (Gong and Xin 2019). ...
Creative clusters are increasingly being recognized as vital tools in the promotion of the competitiveness, innovation, urban development, and growth of cities in developed countries. This paper studies the geography of Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) in Barcelona (Spain) for the years 2009 and 2017. We investigate the spatial distribution of firms using the Scan methodology, which identifies the localization of clusters and assigns them statistical significance. Our findings indicate that CCIs are not located haphazardly— they tend to cluster in and around Barcelona’s prime districts. The evolution of the clusters over these nine years reveals distinct patterns of clustering among the twelve CCI sub-sectors. The mature clusters in Barcelona’s core tend to have greater growth and enhanced transformation capabilities. Our results can guide CCI cluster policy, taking into account the specificity of each sub-sector. In addition, they can direct place-based development strategies, creative urban and rural planning, and restructuring in a polycentric context.
... Third, the impact. Both the quest for tranquility and solitude can have positive effects on people, such as reducing stress and increasing creativity (Gong & Xin, 2019;Hunter et al., 2010;Long & Averill, 2003). The experience of solitude helps people develop a sense of autonomy, concentration, and self-efficacy to develop an internal capacity for solitude so that they can better manage their daily time alone (Kaplan, 1995;Nielsen & Nilsson, 2007). ...
The pursuit of tranquility experience has emerged as a new demand in tourism, but the perception of tranquility in tourism remains understudied. Although there are tools in the psychology and acoustics to measure tranquility perception, they are not suitable in tourism research. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore two contextual tourists’ perceptions scale of tranquility by analyzing two distinct destinations. Visual, auditory, and tactile involvement were introduced into the scale construction. A total of 1012 samples were collected from rural tranquil area and desert tranquil area. Following dimension construction and item production, EFA, CFA, reliability and validity tests were performed. Finally, a five-dimensional tranquility perception scale was developed. This study enriches the current themes and perspectives of multisensory involvement in the tranquility research and directs for further research on tourism, culture and tranquility experience.
... They are mostly made up of small enterprises whose market situation is uncertain, whose innovations have a low technology component, and whose cooperation is less formalised than in other sectors. Also characteristic of creative industries is the buzz and its importance for the development of this segment (Banks and O'Connor, 2017;Gong and Xin, 2019;Florida, 2019;Hartley et al., 2013;Landry, 2008;O'Connor, 2015). ...
The authors compared the geographical distribution of creative clusters in Poland with the spatial distribution of LQ (Location Quotient) measuring the concentration of creative entities in a given area. The study aimed to answer the following questions: what is the spatial distribution of clustering potential for creative industries?, which municipalities are home to entities forming creative clusters?, and, above all, are creative clusters actually formed in areas offering the greatest potential in this respect? In order to find answers to the above questions, the authors carried out two sub-analyses. The first led to the conclusion that only 1.9% of municipalities in Poland offer conditions for creative specialisations, including the formation of creative clusters (LQ > 1.25). The next step involved a comparison of geographical distribution of areas with clustering potential with areas being home to actual creative clusters. The authors did not observe any relationship between the value of LQ reflecting clustering potential for creative industries and the distribution and size of active creative clusters. The correlation coefficient between LQ and the number of cluster members was positive but weak. It shows that creative clusters in Poland are not formed in locations offering best conditions in terms of the number of potential members. Therefore, there are other factors behind the formation of cluster structures. Nevertheless, local potential should be the main driving force because it is one of the crucial components of favourable conditions for building economic specialisation and a foundation on which proper cluster structures should be built on.
... Regarding the former, by combining traditional cultural resources with digital technology, creative entities can create virtual forms of creative products that not only protect these heritage and cultural resources but also allow more users to experience traditional culture free from the constraints of physical space. Regarding the latter, creative entities can browse, learn about, and utilize digital cultural resources; be stimulated to create content [96]; and develop digital creative derivatives to enrich the content ecology of creative industries [97], thus promoting the creative industry's virtual agglomeration. ...
The agglomeration paradigm for creative industries has fundamentally changed under the digital economy, giving rise to a new form of virtual agglomeration within these industries. This study explores the causes of this virtual agglomeration. We collected online Chinese news texts related to the virtual agglomeration of the creative industry, used text mining to identify nine factors affecting its formation, and refined the internal and external factors for an analytical framework based on the PEST (political, economic, social, technological) and value-chain models. We then combined the relevant literature and the creative industry’s development practices, analyzed the mechanism of each driving factor, and constructed a driving-force model for the creative industry’s virtual agglomeration. The external driving factors were government policy planning, the digital economic environment, emerging consumer demand, and the application of innovative technology; the internal factors were the digitalization of cultural resources, flexible manufacturing, digital marketing and promotion, online interactive services, and virtual platform facilities. Each factor was found to contribute to virtual agglomeration through different internal mechanisms. This study’s findings have theoretical and practical value for cultivating the modes of virtual agglomeration within creative industries.
... Also, as the HCs are quite diverse in terms of their main products, it can be assumed that the results are not influenced by a sectoral bias. This is supported by the fact that similar patterns of trans-local rather than local interaction also apply to the creative industries (Gong & Xin 2019), firms in IT (Huber 2012) and biotechnology (Moodysson 2008), for example. Another factor to take into consideration is the age of firms. ...
This dissertation relates to a key topic in economic geography: the relationship between innovation and space. While there is evidence of the multiple benefits of agglomerations for innovation, peripheral regions and their actors are not sufficiently reflected in theoretical and empirical accounts. By building on growing debates around the unease with urban-biased perspectives and the role ascribed to geographical proximity, this research aims to understand the characteristics and main drivers of innovation occurring outside of agglomerations and in how far these differ from those inside agglomerations. Empirically, this dissertation explores the innovation activities of Hidden Champions in Germany. Drawing on data derived from a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews with firm representatives, the analyses reveal that such firms largely follow the same principles to innovate independently from their regional contexts. Intense interaction with externals is only one out of many options for firms to gain knowledge. Non-interactive and more informal modes of knowledge creation in diverse socio-spatial
contexts have been identified as integral parts of firms’ innovation activities. Results suggest a more differentiated view on openness for innovation from a geographical perspective and support a more holistic understanding of the geographies of innovation.
... They are usually small enterprises with a precarious market situation, whose innovations have a low technological content and whose cooperation is less formalized than in other sectors. Characteristic for this sector is also the "buzz" and its importance for the development of the segment (Banks & O'Connor, 2017;Florida, 2002;Gong & Xin, 2019;Hartley et al., 2013;O'Connor, 2015). Creative clusters are set up primarily by various creative environments, including cultural institutions, entities engaged in broadly understood artistic activities, businesses responsible for the commercialization of artistic activities, and for the promotion of events/products, or involved in distribution or organization. ...
The paper aims to identify the factors affecting the development of creative clusters, with a special focus on institutional setting. This knowledge is important for the development of regions, as clusters play a significant role in accelerating the innovation processes and networking, especially that creative industries have a particular tendency for networking. The study found that the location of creative clusters is influenced by the concentration of creative industries while institutional factors play a much smaller role. The development of clusters is mainly hindered by internal factors, such as problems with defining a common strategy, inability to raise funding for operations (especially if public support was received in the early stages of development), or ill‐designed cooperation with scientific institutions. The practical application of the paper can be found in the conclusions regarding cluster policy at the regional level. First, it would be reasonable to develop models of cooperation between local authorities and clusters, including in particular creation of demand for cluster services. Second, it is important to maintain a strategic dialog between cluster coordinators and local authorities to ensure ongoing monitoring of the needs of the creative sector. Third, it is desirable to promote partnerships and clusters in publicly funded competitions.
... Furthermore, we could not control for the proximity in the location where project members were working. It may affect how teams involved in new product development communicate ( Chong et al., 2012 ), as well as learning and creativity ( Gong and Xin, 2019 ). ...
Project management teams are often fluid, changing in composition over projects. Fluidity enables innovative project success, as it allows organizing social capital dynamically across projects. In this study, we argue for an optimum between fluidity and stability. We operationalize project management fluidity as the degree of intactness of the whole team from one project to the next. In a sample of 5370 projects of video game development over ten years using information obtained by web crawling on the internet, we find an inverted-U-shaped relation between intactness and project success, assessed as sales, expert reviews, and consumer reviews. We show that optimal intactness shifts according to project context; higher success occurs at lower levels of intactness when projects require more innovation. Finally, we replicate our findings using intactness of relations between project managers and their operational teams. We discuss the implications for project management, and potential future research.
... Furthermore, we could not control for the proximity in the location where project members were working. It may affect how teams involved in new product development communicate ( Chong et al., 2012 ), as well as learning and creativity ( Gong and Xin, 2019 ). ...
Project management teams are often fluid, changing in composition over projects. Fluidity enables innovative project success, as it allows organizing social capital dynamically across projects. In this study, we argue for an optimum between fluidity and stability. We operationalize project management fluidity as the degree of intactness of the whole team from one project to the next. In a sample of 5370 projects of video game development over ten years using information obtained by web crawling on the internet, we find an inverted-U-shaped relation between intactness and project success, assessed as sales, expert reviews, and consumer reviews. We show that optimal intactness shifts according to project context; higher success occurs at lower levels of intactness when projects require more innovation. Finally, we replicate our findings using intactness of relations between project managers and their operational teams. We discuss the implications for project management, and potential future research.
... Individual creativity can be shaped by project learning (Gong & Xin, 2019). Creating a project that requires careful preparation, proper problem analysis, utilizing existing resources in the hope of creating a product, either in the form of ideas or something concrete, trains students' skills in thinking and being creative. ...
Learning creativity skill is important for students. Distance learning during the Covid-19 period is the best option for study. However, students' needs among cognitive, affective, psychomotor and various skills need to be well accommodated. This study aims to describe the process of creativity in project-based learning in distance learning. The research subjects were 10 elementary school education students grade 2nd. The learning project was carried out at home with online guidance and discussion due to the conditions of Covid-19 which made it impossible to gather. The learning project that is designed is to create a learning media for beginning reading for elementary school students. Wallas' creative process includes 5 stages: preparation, incubation, intimacy, illumination and verification. Distance learning projects are carried out in 7 stages, namely: (1) formulating learning outcomes, (2) understanding concepts, (3) skills training, (4) designing the project, (5) making the project proposal, (6) executing projects and (7) project report. The results showed that in distance project learning can still be done to train creativity with paying more in accessibility of communication and following the learning stage
... Also, creative industries are sometimes regarded as 'unproductive' and 'unnecessary' compared with other larger economy sectors. A characteristic feature of this sector is buzz and its significance for the segment's development (Banks & O'Connor, 2017;Florida, 2002;Gong & Xin, 2019;Hartley et al., 2013;Landry, 2000;O'Connor, 2015). Creative clusters are formed primarily by various creative groups, including cultural institutions, entities involved in broadly understood artistic and entertainment activities, as well as by private entities engaged in advertising, publishing, etc. ...
Creativity is one of the factors promoting the development of urban centres. Its significance provokes discussion on issues such as the creative city, creative industries and creative clusters, and it contributes to the increased demand for multidisciplinary research on economic, social and artistic policy. The paper is devoted to creative industries clusters located in Poland. Its main goal is to identify the factors that hinder the operation of the analysed clusters. The observed factors are broken down into endogenous and exogenous ones, as well as into those that emerged during cluster mobilization and others which surfaced later during the clusters’ existence. The survey was conducted among creative cluster coordinators, using computer-assisted web interview (CAWI) and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI). The results show that most of the problems mentioned by respondents are internal factors, of which the most important one is a misunderstanding of the idea of clustering and the resulting reluctance to share knowledge, as well as the dominance of competition over cooperation, frowned-upon movements of employees between cluster participants, and the consequent diminished trust. External barriers were revealed mainly in further periods of the clusters’ operation. The most important of them was a dependence on external funding. Respondents pointed to a lack of interest on the part of local government units, which makes it difficult to build a properly functioning triple helix. It should also be added that cluster policy in Poland has been moving away from clusters understood in geographical terms where spatial concentration and economic specialization were the key features. Currently, cluster policy is directed more towards managing cluster structures.
E-sports and online games represent an entertainment industry that before the 2020 year was characterized by an incredible development. The COVID19 emergency has further accelerated the global process of diffusion of e-sports and online games, consecrating it as the leading economic industry in the entertainment and technology sector. This paper presents a study that is part of the URBAN GAMERS LAB project (in progress), that describes the role of conscientiousness and toxic behaviors. The study involves 227 professional e-gamers aged between 15 and 34 y.o. This project it is part of an interdisciplinary project that involves a municipality in the Emilia-Romagna region, schools' teachers, and researchers from University of Bologna: departments of psychology, architecture, and engineering. The main objective of the study is to investigate the relationship between the conscientiousness (measured by variables such as responsibility, traditionalism, orderliness, industriousness, virtue, self-control) and disturbing toxic behaviors (Mediocritizing, Sabotaging, Hostage Holding, Flaming), played by e-gamers during different phases of the online game League of Legends (LoL). Preliminary results show that for conscientiousness, there are no significant correlations with age but there is a significant correlation with gender and be part of an e-sports team. The latter is negative correlated with gender, positive correlated with been playing League of Legends and play ranked games. This aspect is positive correlated with age and been playing League of Legends. Regarding toxic behaviors, age does not seem to play an important role, that is, no correlations have been found between age and toxic behaviors. While there is a negative correlation with sabotaging and Hostage Holding and a positive correlation with flaming. Considering instead, how long they have been playing LoL, being more experienced negatively correlates with sabotaging, played with teammates who showed little mastery and positive correlated with being a victim of flaming in chat during a game Turning on been part of an eSports team, results show that this aspect positive correlates with being a victim of flaming in chat during a game and decided to mute the chat because of it. Finally, playing ranked games negatively correlates with sabotaging, and positively correlates with being a victim of flaming in chat during a game and decided to mute your chat because of it.
Urbanization causes enormous land use/land cover (LULC) changes, which have become significant drivers of land surface temperature (LST) change in rapidly urbanizing city, and the changes in LULC subsequently increase the LST to form urban heat island (UHI). This paper first identified the spatial distribution pattern of the LULC changes and surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) in the study area in recent 20 years based on Landsat TM/OLI data. And later, the relationship between the distribution of impervious surface (IS) and vegetable coverage (VC) and SUHII was analyzed quantitatively. Then, the land cover and land surface temperature (LST) in Shanghai in 2027 under three development modes were simulated and predicted based on FLUS model and geospatial analysis. The results showed that (1) Regional land cover and LST had obvious differences in gradient distribution from urban to rural areas, and the outer ring road (Ring3) was an obvious dividing line; (2) the proportion of IS and VC were significantly positively (|R| > 0.695) and negatively (|R| > 0.328) correlated with LST; (3) under the three different scenario development models, the ecological space protection model effectively regulated the SUHII, which was 15.91% less than the SUHII in 2017 (34% inside Ring3 and 14% outside Ring3). The results could provide a reference for the rational allocation of urban land and landscape optimization in reducing SUHII` in typical urbanized areas.
This paper investigates how online platforms co-construct spatialities of fashion design. Advancing the notion of workspaces of mediation, the article interlinks research on the geographies of creative work with debates on digital geography. It demonstrates that humans, online platforms, and spatiality are interrelated and come together in the constitution of everyday spatial encounters and experiences. Applying methods from digital ethnography, in-depth interviews, on/offline participant observations, and an analysis of Instagram accounts were conducted. The article demonstrates that Instagram has become a powerful non-human actor that reconfigures (i) practices, (ii) spaces, and (iii) places of work. With the notion of workspaces of mediation, the paper argues that spaces of work must go beyond concepts of hybrid space and beyond the geotag. Instead, mediated workspaces are constituted as a complex entanglement of online and offline socio-spatial relations and practices.
Purpose- The primary motivation behind this paper is to break down results of Coronavirus on imports and fares of China with anticipated mistake and future patterns.
Design/methodology/approach - The paper depends on an Auto Backward Coordinated Moving Normal model with explicit suggestion of Box and Jenkins approach each year complete assessment of imports and fares of China as of the year 1950-2016 through supportive quantifiable programming R. It is found that ARIMA (0, 2, 2) and ARIMA (0, 2, 1) model appear to be to be sensible to measure full scale yearly imports and fares of China independently.
Findings - After the control of COVID plague Chinese imports and fares will extend a tiny bit at a time and after the skirmish of three years get the figure (153609.6) in 2022, it will get the figure (153096.8) of 2019. After 2022, the advancement movement of Chinese imports and fares will be extended in a reliably close about a comparative rate before the attack of novel COVID. Research limitations/implications - The foremost restriction of the research work it is merely support on secondary data. Practical implications - The scientist can utilize these models for determining yearly imports and fares of China. Any way it ought to be refreshed opportunity to time with a consolidation of current information. It is most significant that the scientist ought to consistently follow the guideline of stinginess and attempt to fit straightforward model rather than model with enormous boundaries. Originality/value - The uniqueness of this article is that it features the select models for gauging import and fare of China. It was discovered that AIC based model determination methods provided ARIMA models with request (0, 2, 2) and request (0, 2, 1) for imports and fares of China separately were proper and helps in advancing money related incorporation with brings about higher monetary development and unfamiliar financial specialists.
While economic geography has provided great insights in regional industrial development, knowledge is limited concerning how a contested local industry can be legitimized and who contributes to such legitimation process. The aim of this paper is to investigate the legitimation trajectory of a contested creative industry in Hamburg-the video games industry. The central argument is that the controversies of the focal industry mainly come from four aspects-the product ontologies, the boundary beliefs, the industry recipes, and the reputational rankings. These dimensions combined have led to dynamic societal evaluations of the industry over time. Moreover, the main stigmata related to the aforementioned dimensions may lie at different spatial scales, and thus require the differentiated legitimation efforts of actors at different levels. Overall, it is argued that in 2 normalizing a contested industry in a region, the legitimation process is not merely a local phenomenon, but global referencing and national legitimation are crucial, as well.
The authors seek to find a structural basis for the success of collectively executed projects. Here they continue to use previously elaborated concepts of structural folding and creative tension, but they go on to advance their approach by including the cognitive variables in the analysis instead of merely focusing on social structure. In this article, they examine the sociological factors that explain why some creative teams are able to produce game changers-cultural products that stand out as distinctive while also being critically recognized as outstanding. The authors build on work pointing to structural folding-the network property of a cohesive group whose membership overlaps with that of another cohesive group. They hypothesize that the effects of structural folding on game-changing success are especially strong when overlapping groups are cognitively distant. Measuring social distance separately from cognitive distance and distinctiveness independently from critical acclaim, the authors test their hypothesis about structural folding and cognitive diversity by analyzing team reassembly for 12422 video games and the career histories of 139727 video game developers. When combined with cognitive distance, structural folding channels and mobilizes a productive tension of rules, roles, and codes that promotes successful innovation. In addition to serving as pipes and prisms, network ties are also the source of tools and tensions.
Many key ideas and concepts that underpin our understanding of the geography of innovation were developed in the 1980s and early 1990s. They have in common their reference to a world of limited mobility and expensive communications. Furthermore, they were developed without fully theorizing geography: it is the innovation process and firm behaviour that have been theorized, leaving geographical concepts relatively unexplored. In the chapter the authors outline some of the limits of the current way that the geography of innovation is understood. First, they argue that geography should not be approached as a canvas upon which innovation occurs, but needs to be problematized and theorized. Second, we argue that there are ambiguities – or confusions – in the object and purpose of research: if the reasons for studying the geography of innovation were better articulated, and if the type of innovative process being examined were clarified, many apparently irreconcilable observations and ideas would be found to be complementary. Finally, the authors highlight the contextuality of geographic thought and concepts: each researcher brings to the table his or her own cultural biases and beliefs, and these colour the emphasis put on particular aspects of the interconnection between space and innovation.
This is an account on peripherality, dissociation, and outsiders. It is, however, not a story about a marginal backwater region whose fate is sealed by geography and history; and it does not resonate with the standard narrative of regional suffering imposed by a lack of centrality. In this account, peripherality does not feature as destiny, but as the result of a deliberate choice to shield creativity and dissenting ideas from the mimetic pressures of the mainstream. Moreover, rather than as a static dualism, periphery and center are regarded as relationally constituted and functionally interdependent both with regard to the generation of novelty as well as to the valuation of creativity. This account demonstrates how self-chosen peripherality was leveraged to instigate an architectural movement that elevated outsiders to world-fame as Baukünstler, and that transformed a provincial Austrian region into an international center of architectural creativity.
In economic geography, the notion of copresence has been at the very center of the research agenda for decades. The elaboration of the benefits of colocation and physical proximity was (and still is) a chief aim of the disciplinary project to demonstrate that ''geography matters''. The geographical concern with colocation, proximity and distance, in fact, resonates with the sociological discourse on copresence. And yet, the relationship between copresence and its (distant) geographical relatives has rarely been explicated in a systematic fashion. By drawing on the seminal contributions by Goffman, Giddens and Knorr Cetina, amongst others, this account confronts the geographical conceptions of colocation, proximity and distance with sociological perceptions of copresence. By advancing from copresence as ''being there'' to copresence as ''being aware'' we seek to push beyond the prevailing physical perceptions of copresence towards a more socially constructivist understanding that accounts for the simultaneity and mutual conditioning of diverse modes of copresence and absence.
This article offers a theoretical discussion on how major neoclassical economic theory assumptions blur the understanding of creative industries. By distinguishing between creative-rational and creative-intuitive industries, with different compositions of commercial and cultural attributes, we particularly show how the latter sector has characteristics and dynamics that are incompatible with a theory based on preference rationality, profit maximisation and equal access to information among actors. When customer utility is composed of economic, as well as aesthetic, spiritual, social, historical, symbolic and authenticity values, then all these will affect customers' willingness to pay, and a single monetary standard based on preference rationality is difficult to establish. In addition, when artistic integrity is a central aspect of creative production, prices will have a limited impact on supply. We identify three types of market failure in creative industries due to information asymmetries, namely ‘lemon markets’, ‘concentration markets’ and ‘speculator markets’. We propose further research on subjective reasoning among buyers and how prices are set; how artistic and economic logics of producers relate to business performance; and how creative industries' growth can be facilitated, not least in poor economies with a high need for employment creation.
Economic geographers have, for a long time, analysed the meaning of geographical co-presence and dispersion in knowledge creation. Recently, interest has shifted towards the process approach and the levels of individuals and groups. Despite this, little empirical research has been conducted following the knowledge creation process ‘here’ (including on-site observation) and ‘now’ (not ex-post) in groups through repeated geographical dispersion. This case study follows four project research groups in Finland led by foreign, distinguished professors. These groups created knowledge during a repeated pattern of geographical co-presence and dispersion. The study covers a seven-year period from the beginning of the projects and goes beyond their completion, including three intensive periods of collecting empirical materials. The results demonstrate that a cognitive locus of shared understanding of the project focus is key for creating knowledge during periods of geographical dispersion and even after the conclusion of such projects. The results show three types of cognitive loci that are created in three patterns of geographical co-presence and dispersion. Each of the three combinations supports particular outcomes and the continuity of projects in Finland.
During the last decades, a large body of literature has been published on the clustering of creative industries, but it has not been reviewed in a systematic way. In this review paper, we fill this gap. The review leads to the identification of several deficiencies of current research. Based on that, we distil avenues for future empirical research on the drivers of the clustering of creative industries, which are embedded in a comprehensive analytical framework.
Attention Restoration Theory (ART) suggests the ability to concentrate may be restored by exposure to natural environments. Although widely cited, it is unclear as to the quantity of empirical evidence that supports this. A systematic review regarding the impact of exposure to natural environments on attention was conducted. Seven electronic databases were searched. Studies were included if (1) they were natural experiments, randomized investigations, or recorded ?before and after? measurements; (2) compared natural and nonnatural/other settings; and (3) used objective measures of attention. Screening of articles for inclusion, data extraction, and quality appraisal were performed by one reviewer and checked by another. Where possible, random effects meta-analysis was used to pool effect sizes. Thirty-one studies were included. Meta-analyses provided some support for ART, with significant positive effects of exposure to natural environments for three measures (Digit Span Forward, Digit Span Backward, and Trail Making Test B). The remaining 10 meta-analyses did not show marked beneficial effects. Meta-analysis was limited by small numbers of investigations, small samples, heterogeneity in reporting of study quality indicators, and heterogeneity of outcomes. This review highlights the diversity of evidence around ART in terms of populations, study design, and outcomes. There is uncertainty regarding which aspects of attention may be affected by exposure to natural environments.
This paper presents an empirical study on the location choice of creative enterprises in Shanghai. It is suggested that categorical differences between different subsectors of creative industries are significant, especially with regard to a division between technology-intensive sectors and culture-related agencies. Creative enterprises from technology-intensive sectors such as architecture design and IT enterprises appear to differ greatly from cultural and fashion related agencies in location choice due to the disaggregated knowledge inputs involved in the production processes, as well as the divergences in market operation. Meanwhile, this study suggests that some location variables for creative industries (e.g. human capital and face-to-face contact) highlighted by West-based studies on the ?creative class? are relevant in the case of Shanghai while other factors like sexual tolerance bear minor importance.
The article explores the role of art festivals as platforms for knowledge and network development in the creative industries and creative policy intervention using the case of a small street art festival (Fuse Festival in Medway, UK). The analysis provides a broader perspective on the current research and debate on the impact and role played by arts festivals in local economic and cultural development—which usually concentrate on either their socioeconomic impact on local communities—to focus instead of their role in building knowledge communities and communities of practice. The results highlight the key role played by the festival in supporting and commissioning artistic work. The results also expose the temporary and explorative nature of many artistic practices and the role of interaction with audiences and other creative producers. Following a network perspective, the findings highlight the role of temporary clusters not only in shaping career opportunities for artists but also in drawing new pathways for local economic development for contexts undergoing regeneration.
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/55024527/Paper_Festivals_Networks_final.pdf
Knowledge creation is recognized as interaction between individuals in a social context but geography-of-knowledge-creation research inadequately connects social context to physical place. The proximities approach reduces physical place to near-far dichotomies and territorial innovation models conflate social context and physical place. This paper introduces the concept of ‘conversations’ as social spaces of knowledge creation and develops typologies of how conversations are connected to physical places, based on the effort required to bridge distance and on the attractiveness of places for knowledge creation. Addressing the socio-spatial dynamics of knowledge creation, the paper explains how conversations may be anchored in multiple locations.
This article takes issue with the reification of proximity in the current debates about the geographies of knowledge production.
It aims at developing a more differentiated view on the spatialities of learning by focussing on knowledge practices in which
neither physical nor relational proximity are available. More specifically, the article explores on the basis of a ‘netnographic
approach’ interactive knowledge collaboration in nine ‘hybrid virtual communities’ that reflect a broad spectrum of organizational
set-ups from firm hosted over firm related to independent communities. Our empirical analysis reveals that hybrid virtual
communities even in the absence of physical or relational proximity are able to produce economically useful knowledge; that
despite the low importance of proximity the physical and material conditions play a crucial role for knowledge collaboration
in hybrid virtual communities; and that hybrid virtual communities afford unique technical opportunities and social dynamics
that foster learning processes unattainable in face-to-face contexts.
The open innovation paradigm has become central for understanding firm-level innovation, and is being refined and questioned as researchers explore its limits. However, it has been rather uncritically adopted by many economic geographers since it provides backing for a variety of theories and observations that point towards innovation occurring in geographically concentrated clusters and cities and towards the role that proximity plays. Evidence that innovation can and does occur outside of clusters and cities, whilst widespread, has not displaced the prevailing idea that innovation and geographic concentration are intimately linked. In this paper, I first go over these arguments, focussing on the reasons why innovation is thought to be associated with cities and clusters. I then propose a framework that accounts for the clustering of innovative firms, for the role of cities, and for the fact that empirical work consistently shows that firms introduce first-to-market innovations in a wide variety of geographic contexts, including isolated and peripheral ones. The framework (re)introduces time and place as key factors, which determine not the diffusion, but the value to innovators, of different types of information.
This paper contributes to the need in economic geography to understand temporal interactions and sources of new knowledge in such interactions in the knowledge creation process. The focus is on eleven international artists who live in peripheral locations in Finnish Lapland, where spatial and temporal disconnections easily evolve. The paper considers the meaning of such disconnections, as well as human–object interaction. The processes are analysed through the spatio-temporal framework of object, communicative and cognitive spaces, and linear and relational times.
James Faulconbridge is Professor of Transnational Management at Lancaster University.
His research focuses upon the globalisation of professional service firms. Recent
articles have examined the nature of stretched communities of learning in such firms,
and institutional effects on globalising firms. He is co-author of
The Globalisation of Advertising and editor of
International Business Travel in the Global Economy.
Roel Rutten is assistant professor at the School of Social and Behavioural Sciences
of Tilburg University and has worked as a consultant of regional innovation policy.
His research interests include innovation and organization and the geography of innovation
and learning. He is a founding member of the Social Dynamics of Innovation Networks
research community and an active member of the Regional Studies Association. He frequently
engages with practitioners in the field of innovation and regional development.
In this paper, we study the formation of network ties between firms along the life cycle of a creative industry. We focus on three drivers of network formation: i) network endogeneity which stresses a path-dependent change originating from previous network structures, ii) five forms of proximity (e.g. geographical proximity) which ascribe tie formation to the similarity of actors' attributes; and (iii) individual characteristics which refer to the heterogeneity in actors capabilities to exploit external knowledge. The paper employs a stochastic actor-oriented model to estimate the - changing - effects of these drivers on inter-firm network formation in the global video game industry from 1987 to 2007. Our findings indicate that the effects of the drivers of network formation change with the degree of maturity of the industry. To an increasing extent, video game firms tend to partner over shorter distances and with more cognitively similar firms as the industry evolves.
Dominant theories of creativity and innovation in economic geography do not seem to apply to the UK videogames development sector, because it does not exhibit strong tendencies to cluster in urban areas or organise production through systems of horizontal inter-firm relationships. This paper explores alternative explanations of learning in this knowledge-intensive sector by focusing on work practices within development studios and projects. The research focuses on the related issues of growing team sizes and the international outsourcing of some production as trends that are transforming the context for knowing-in-practice in these organisational settings. In the cultural–historical activity theory conceptual framework used for the study, this change is framed as a form of collective learning requiring new intermediary design and project management tools. The spatiality of this process is interpreted as a dynamic formed by the dialectical tension between the situated and distributed elements of knowing in videogames development as a creative practice.
In traditional location theory there is a distinction between factors of production for which the costs differ significantly between locations, on the one hand, and production inputs which are in practice available everywhere at more or less the same cost (i.e. so-called ubiquities) on the other.
In this article, we discuss the process whereby some previously important location factors are actively converted into ubiquities. With an admittedly rather horrendous term, we label this process ‘ubi-quitification’. It is argued that ubiquitification is the outcome of the ongoing globalization process as well as of a process whereby former tacit knowledge gradually becomes codified.
Ubiquitification tends to undermine the competitiveness of firms in the high-cost areas of the world. When international markets are opened up and when knowledge of the latest production technologies and organizational designs become globally available, firms in low-cost areas become more competitive. In a knowledge-based economy, as a consequence, firms in high-cost areas must either shield some valuable pieces of knowledge from becoming globally accessible, or be able to create, acquire, accumulate and utilize codifiable knowledge a little faster than their cost-wise more favourably located competitors.
Focusing on learning processes, the article maintains that most firms learn from close interaction with suppliers, customers and rivals. Furthermore, processes of knowledge creation are strongly influenced by specific localized capabilities such as resources, institutions, social and cultural structures.
In this article, we make two important contributions to the literature on clusters. First, we provide a broader theory of
cluster connectivity that has hitherto focused on organization-based pipelines and MNE subsidiaries, by including linkages
in the form of personal relationships. Second, we use the lens of social network theory to derive a number of testable propositions.
We propose that global linkages with decentralized network structures have the highest potential for local spillovers. In
the emerging economy context, our theory implies that clusters linked to the global economy by decentralized pipelines have
potential for in-depth catch-up, focused in industry and technology scope. In contrast, clusters linked through decentralized
personal relationships have potential for in-breadth catch-up over a range of related industries and technologies. We illustrate
our theoretical propositions by contrasting two emerging economy case studies: Bollywood, the Indian filmed entertainment
cluster in Mumbai and the Indian software cluster in Bangalore.
: This article represents a broad and occasionally polemical meditation on the nature and significance of creative cities. I seek to situate the concept of creative cities within the context of the so-called new economy and to trace out the connections of these phenomena to recent shifts in technologies, structures of production, labor markets, and the dynamics of locational agglomeration. I try to show, in particular, how the structures of the new economy unleash historically specific forms of economic and cultural innovation in modern cities. The argument is concerned passim with policy issues and, above all, with the general possibilities and limitations faced by policymakers in any attempt to build creative cities. The effects of globalization are discussed, with special reference to the prospective emergence of a worldwide network of creative cities bound together in relations of competition and cooperation. In the conclusion, I pinpoint some of the darker dimensions—both actual and potential—of creative cities.
This special issue explores the paradoxes caused by the challenge of managing and organizing creativity in the cultural economy. Conventional views of the individual creative artist are replaced by a view of creativity as a social process embedded within organizational and institutional contexts. The cultural economy is broadly defined in terms of breadth of industries included and depth elements of the cultural production chain. The paper next examines paradoxical practices of the special issue papers in terms of managing creative personnel and managing creative processes. Paradoxes grounded in difference, distance, globalization and identity provide a framework for reviewing each special issue paper's findings on how cultural industry participants, whether individuals, organizations or communities of participants, balance, and as often integrate, competing demands of creative and routine work. The paper concludes with recommendations for more comparative cultural industry research into the personnel, work and management practices employed for managing and organizing creative work and creative workers. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
I begin with a rough sketch of the incidence of the cultural economy in US cities today. I then offer a brief review of some theoretical approaches to the question of creativity, with special reference to issues of social and geographic context. The city is a powerful fountainhead of creativity, and an attempt is made to show how this can be understood in terms of a series of localized field effects. The creative field of the city is broken down (relative to the cultural economy) into four major components, namely, (a) intra-urban webs of specialized and complementary producers, (b) the local labour market and the social networks that bind workers together in urban space, (c) the wider urban environment, including various sites of memory, leisure, and social reproduction, and (d) institutions of governance and collective action. I also briefly describe some of the path-dependent dynamics of the creative field. The article ends with a reference to some issues of geographic scale. Here, I argue that the urban is but one (albeit important) spatial articulation of an overall creative field whose extent is ultimately nothing less than global.
This article is concerned with the alleged absence in economic geography of a particular microtheoretical foundation that spells out precisely what makes the central actor of the subdiscipline, “the firm,” behave and perform the way it does. It especially maintains that economic geography is characterized by the lack of a clear conception and understanding of why this specific form of organizing economic activity exists and prevails in a specialized exchange economy, the factors conditioning its size and boundaries, and the endogenous mechanisms that influence its mode of external interaction. The article proposes that theories developed in neighboring fields—particularly economics—can be identified, selected, and subsequently applied within economic geography by developing a selection mechanism based on a few simple criteria.
In this paper, we are concerned with the relationship between creativity, ignorance and mobility. We understand creativity as a social process of recombination, which is strongly shaped by the actors’ lack of knowledge (or: ignorance) and thus argue in favor of a conceptual shift: Instead of analyzing creativity from a knowledge perspective, the analytical focus is on the participants’ evolving ignorance. In a qualitative multiple-case study research of creative processes in three domains, biotechnology, legal services and board game design, we explore the time-spatial dynamics of collaboration under the influence of two distinct forms of ignorance: unrecognized and specified ignorance. Initially, participants do not know what they do not know and are unable to purposefully directed search for inspiration. In this stage, overlapping local opportunities play a significant role to afford serendipitous encounters. Creative processes take a decisive turn, once participants manage to specify their ignorance. It becomes possible to circumscribe missing expertise and to search for it more purposefully – or to intentionally refrain from further inquiry. Now mutual attraction of experts enables interaction across distance. Places deemed irrelevant are circumvented.
This article puts forward co-production as a lens for geographical approaches to collaborative knowledge production. Co-production extends understandings of collaboration as temporary, fragile and with multiple spatial forms. Through the example of creative writers’ artistic knowledge, co-production is developed as a process of making together that involves intermittent spaces of sharing and cooperation between different actors beyond and across firm organisational boundaries. It is argued that the formal and informal mixing of these actors requires focusing on the micro-spaces of co-production that show how sharing knowledge occurs through forms of emotional work. Drawing on interviews with writers and participant observation of creative writing practices in Bristol, three spaces of co-production are outlined: the workshop, the project and the event. These highlight the geographies of emotions in such co-production, in particular the role of trust which is significant in, but also beyond, face-to-face encounters. The article concludes by pointing to the implications of the research.
This article argues that local knowledge building and global (nonlocal) knowledge-accessing practices in economic development
are intrinsically interwoven. They generate fundamental feedback loops, which are channeled through and lead to ongoing knowledge
circulation. To better understand the nature of the specific mechanisms and conditions underlying these processes, three key
areas of research are identified for current and future research. These are related to (i) creative agents and the nature
of local creative processes, (ii) community formation and local creativity from ideas to market penetration and (iii) temporary
gatherings as translocal knowledge platforms.
This article begins by reviewing how knowledge and innovation has been conceptualized in economic geography over time. It then moves on to explore in detail the characteristics of knowledge including its generation processing and exchange. This article then seeks to explore the increasingly distributed nature of knowledge and the division of knowing in an economy, which is leading to many key knowledge workers and activities to become ever more isolated. © The Author (2012). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Acting as temporary clusters, trade fairs can turn into trans-local learning spaces in global industrial communities. However,
up to now, how temporary gatherings are related to regional/national economies has not yet been systematically investigated.
This article approaches the question with an international comparative study of trade fairs in Asian economies. Generally,
consistent with a dynamic interpretation of temporary clusters, trade fairs exhibit a more diverse configuration of participants,
being a setting more compatible for knowledge creation, in more developed Asian economies. However, structures of trade fairs
are also influenced by organizational features of embedded economies. Further, seven flagship electronics fairs suggest an
architecture of global temporary networks of clusters for high-end learning processes in the global knowledge economy.
This paper discusses the role of business conferences in enabling processes of knowledge transfers over distance. It argues that conferences form a specific type of temporary cluster bringing together knowing communities from cross-industry, functional fields and creating opportunities for diverse knowledge exchanges. In contrast to other types of temporary clusters, such as trade fairs, horizontal interactions with peers and competitors are at the core of business conferences, focused around presentations and keynote speeches that provide crucial reference points. Although some conferences may have a distinct field-configuring potential related to the activities of the conference organizers, the actual outcomes are mostly less predictable and depend on the diverse goals, needs and experiences of the participants. As such, conferences enable ongoing field reproduction, rather than discontinuous field configuration. This is illustrated in an explorative study of three business conferences in Toronto.
Communities of practice play an important role in innovation processes. It is, however, still unclear what their particular function is. In this article the authors seek first to develop further systematic differentiations between different types of knowing in practice to provide the conceptual ground for studying the influences of knowing in practice on innovation in a comparative way. Therefore, existing inductive approaches are complemented with deductive elements that highlight different impulses of reflexivity (push vs. pull) and different internal logics of reflexivity (rationalist vs. aesthetic). Second, in this article the authors introduce a dynamic approach which focuses on core ideas of innovation processes from a spatial perspective. In such a dynamic view types of knowing in practice have an impact as sources and resources of innovation. As sources of innovation they form a particular locus in which novel ideas emerge and subsequently take particular trajectories. As resources of innovation they intervene at subsequent stages of the process and propel further the translation process of a novel idea becoming eventually a valuable and practicable solution.
It has been argued that innovation increasingly depends on external knowledge sources. It is still unclear if relations to particular knowledge sources or to a broad variety of sources matter for innovation. Also, there is a debate on the issue which spatial levels are most relevant. In this context, we investigate the importance for ICT firms in Austria of variety in knowledge sourcing for their innovativeness and the relevance of geography in this respect. The results show that more innovative firms tend to exploit a larger variety of regional and international sources. We also find that R&D co-operations and in-house knowledge capabilities are highly important, while firm location only shows a weak association with their innovativeness.
Work on clusters during the last few decades convincingly demonstrates enhanced opportunities for local growth and entrepreneurship,
but external upstream knowledge linkages are often overlooked or taken for granted. This article is an attempt to remedy this
situation by investigating why and how young, single-site firms search for distant sources of complementary competences. The
discussion is positioned within a comprehensive framework that allows a systematic investigation of the approaches available
to firms engaged in globally extended learning. By utilizing the distinction between problem awareness (what remote knowledge
is needed?) and source awareness (where does this knowledge reside?) the article explores the relative merits and inherent
limitations of pipelines, listening posts, crowdsourcing and trade fairs to acquire knowledge and solutions from geographically
and relationally remote sources.
This article presents a novel spatio-temporal framework for studying knowledge creation. To achieve this, we analyzed the recent literature on space, time and knowledge and conducted an empirical study. The intensive case was about four international distinguished university research groups in Finland in the fields of technology and science. Object, communicative and cognitive spaces with linear and relational times were used as tools for empirical analysis. Combinations of space and time bring out different aspects of knowledge. Knowledge processes of progressing knowledge (time-space), creating distinguished knowledge (space-time), and path-taking and bundling knowledge (spacetime) bind spaces and times closely together. Besides academy, the spatio-temporal framework can be applied to study the knowledge creation processes in art, business and local communities, for example.
This paper investigates the forces that influence creativity in the video games industry. We adopt a qualitative approach to guide the development of grounded theory across multiple levels of analysis, including the industry (consisting of multiple actors), organizational, and individual creator levels. Our study shows that business and production interests currently drive the rationalization of video game production. There is a maturing trend, with product designs becoming well established as genres, and consumers and publishers desiring incrementally innovative games. This leads publishers to focus on acquiring intellectual property, and publishers and studios alike to make incrementally innovative sequels. The increasing complexity of products leads to further rationalization in their development. However, the need to satisfy consumers' continually evolving tastes and game developers' inclinations to be creative also creates tensions with these rational forces. Different actors balance these tensions differently. Studios may seek to balance these by shifting between more and less innovative products, by creating original intellectual property to increase their bargaining power with publishers, and by iterating and repositioning products during development to adapt them to the market. Publishers may enhance their portfolio by hiring highly creative designers into their stable. New products are created through combinative creativity, that is, the recombination of existing ideas from different sources into new products. The connection of combinative mechanisms with the balancing behavior at the firm level provides a means for understanding the evolution of innovative products and, therefore, industries.
The objective of the paper is to discuss the space and scale of knowledge networks for innovation. The point of departure is a critical review of territorialised innovation theories according to which the source of growth and competitiveness is to be found in the innovative interplay among local actors and institutions. The region is believed to play a particular role as incubator or mediator for small firms. On this background the question raised is what globalisation and the emergence of time and space shrinking technologies imply to the spatial scale of knowledge networks. It is shown that the territorialised innovation theories rest on simplistic perceptions of embeddedness and space, and on functional notions of proximity which treat the firms as black box. The result is a considerable regional determinism. On the basis of recent network theory and empirical results, it is argued that firms do find knowledge sources on different spatial scales. Global networks or distant knowledge sources are particularly beneficial to innovation and firms are able to establish and participate in knowledge networks on all spatial scales. The political focus on local and regional innovation networks should therefore be changed and the role of the region redefined.
This article contributes to the literatures on knowledge communities, knowledge exchange, knowledge bases and cultural and creative industries. It suggests that short-term events in even ‘ordinary’ places can meet the criteria for knowledge communities and, therefore, deserve greater attention from scholars. Examples from the music economy are presented in order to expand thinking on knowledge communities with respect to industrial influence and scale. In addition, by comparing a music industry conference in Los Angeles with a music-related project in Columbus, Ohio, processes of knowledge exchange are examined in relation to the concepts of local and global buzz and pipelines and new work in this area. By focusing on the characteristics of knowledge involved in training sessions for independent artists within the two temporary events, a blurring of the boundary between the symbolic and synthetic knowledge bases is proposed.
Creativity is becoming the currency of the contemporary economy. A sustained literature in economic geography and elsewhere has pointed to the importance of creativity, especially in the cultural industries. Production in these sectors often rests upon access to deep pools of highly skilled talent, primarily in large urban regions. However, the recent literature has stated that cultural or creative inputs are not limited to these industries, but also extend into other sectors of the economy that benefit from access to the same (local) labor markets. It is argued that creative work is primarily project based and that highly skilled creative professionals move seamlessly from project to project and from job to job. This circulation of talent is viewed as crucial to the flow of knowledge and the (re)production of practices, norms, and reputations across firm and industry boundaries within the city-region. Despite the compelling nature of this description, the labor market dynamics that underpin this circulation of creative workers remain poorly specified and only weakly substantiated. This article addresses this issue by investigating systematically the local interfirm and interindustry dynamics of creative labor markets. Using evidence from the detailed career histories of practicing designers, as well as in-depth interviews with various institutional actors in Toronto, it documents how the careers of designers are characterized by precariousness and high levels of circulation within the local labor market. The analysis also demonstrates the importance of reputation building, repeated collaborations, shared career paths, and mediation by a constellation of formal and informal intermediary actors for career development.
abstractThis article links up with the debate in economic geography on “local buzz” and “global pipelines” as two distinct forms of interactive knowledge creation among firms and related actors and argues for a rethinking of the way social scientists should approach interactive knowledge creation. It highlights the importance of combining the insights from studies of clusters and innovation systems with an activity-oriented approach in which more attention is paid to the specific characteristics of the innovation processes and the conditions underpinning their organization. To illustrate the applicability and added value of such an alternative approach, the notion of embeddedness is linked with some basic ideas adopted from the literature on knowledge communities. The framework is then applied to a study of innovation activities conducted by firms and academic research groups working with biotechnology-related applications in the Swedish part of the Medicon Valley life science region. The findings reveal that local buzz is largely absent in these types of activities. Most interactive knowledge creation, which appears to be spontaneous and unregulated, is, on closer examination, found safely embedded in globally configured professional knowledge communities and attainable only by those who qualify.
This contribution illustrates how a videogame firm copes in managing creativity and expression of artistic values, while meeting the constraints of the economics of mass entertainment. The research is based on a case study in one of the largest video game studios in the world located in Montreal, Canada. The approach considers that the creative units of the firms are the communities of specialists (game developers, software programmers, etc.). Each of these communities, which have found a fertile soil in Montreal that nurtures their creative potential, is focused on both exploration and exploitation of a given domain of knowledge. In order to benefit from these sources of creativity, the integration forces implemented by the managers of the firm to bind the creative units together for achieving commercial successes reveal a hybrid form of project management which combines decentralized platforms with strict constraints on time, and a specific management of space that favors informal interactions. However, we suggest that the integration forces put forward by the firm are not just for harnessing creative units: they also generate creative slacks for further expansion of creativity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Argues for studying the region as a locus of untraded interdependencies. Three main lines of analysis have emerged from the study of regions since the early 1980s, concentrating on institutions, industrial organization and transactions, and technological change and learning. These analyses regard the region as an essential level of capitalistic economic coordination, but none has gone so far as to formulate why this is the case. It is argued that untraded interdependencies between actors in a region generate material and non-material assets in production, so that the region serves as the primary source of development. A regional economics of this nature takes into account more than the typical input-output relations, and includes an analysis of technological change and organization. Synthesis of the regional literature and a brief look at contemporary European policies show that public goods, and especially capacities for collective action and coordination, are missing from policies aimed at abating regional inequalities. In sum, developing an analytical language for the region - based on action and encompassing the uniqueness of particular regions as well as the interdependencies by which they are characterized - will contribute greatly to understanding economic processes within capitalism. (CJC)
Christopher R. Long and James R. Averill, Solitude: An Exploration of Benefits of Being Alone, pp. 21–44.
Historically, philosophers, artists, and spiritual leaders have extolled the benefits of solitude; currently, advice on how to achieve solitude is the subject of many popular books and articles. Seldom, however, has solitude been studied by psychologists, who have focused instead on the negative experiences associated with being alone, particularly loneliness. Solitude, in contrast to loneliness, is often a positive state—one that may be sought rather than avoided. In this article, we examine some of the benefits that have been attributed to solitude—namely, freedom, creativity, intimacy, and spirituality. In subsequent sections, we consider the environmental settings and personality characteristics conducive to solitude, how time spent alone is experienced differently across the life span, and the potential dangers related to the attractiveness of solitude. We conclude with a brief discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of solitude.
The paper is conceptual, combining project and economic organization literatures in order to explain the organization and management of market-based projects. It puts particular focus on projects set up in order to facilitate product innovation through experimentation. It investigates the internal vs market economies of scale and scope related to projects, as well as the issues of governance, planning and coordination related to reaping such economies. Incorporating transaction cost perspectives as well as considerations of labor markets, the paper explains the management of market-organized innovation projects by virtue of localized project ecologies and local labor markets of leaders and boundary spanners. It illustrates its arguments with a case study of the recorded music industry.