Abstract
ABSTRACT Existing research has emphasised various mechanisms for knowledge exchange in industry clusters, including inter-firm collaboration, labour mobility, and monitoring of other firms. However, these mechanisms are normally studied in isolation, and we know little about how they interrelate. This paper examines which firms collaborate within a cluster. We ask whether knowledge exchanges through other channels, specifically monitoring and labour mobility, are positively or negatively associated with collaboration. We use data from interviews with 30 firms in the subsea sector in Rogaland, Norway, representing nearly the entire population of the cluster, to examine the association between the different forms of linkages. The results from Social Network Analysis reveal an overall high degree of knowledge exchange among the organisations making up the subsea cluster. Furthermore, using Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) regression analysis, we find that collaborative linkages are significantly more likely to exist between firms which share recruitment and/or monitoring linkages.
Highlights
Literature in economic geography and innovation studies has long been preoccupied with the co-location of firms in clusters and industrial districts, and in particular with the potential for knowledge exchange between co-located actors resulting in innovation
The analysis provides strong support for the idea of a positive relationship between the various mechanisms of knowledge exchange: Firms are significantly more likely to collaborate with firms from which they recruit skilled labour or which they monitor for inspiration
This paper has examined knowledge exchange in the Rogaland subsea industry through collaboration, monitoring and recruitment
Summary
Literature in economic geography and innovation studies has long been preoccupied with the co-location of firms in clusters and industrial districts, and in particular with the potential for knowledge exchange between co-located actors resulting in innovation. There is an emerging literature on the formation of collaboration networks, exploring e.g. how spatial, network and other types of distances (Autant-Bernard et al 2007; Broekel and Hartog 2013; Ter Wal 2014) affect the likelihood of collaboration These studies have mostly not considered the relationship between collaboration patterns and other knowledge exchange linkages between the same firms. Collaborative linkages are socially embedded, and labour mobility and monitoring might bring new information about potential collaboration partners If this is the case, a positive relationship between the channels would be expected. The final section concludes with a discussion of the results and their implications
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