Firms’ embeddedness into knowledge networks has received much attention in the literature. However, little is known about the composition of firms’ ego-networks with respect to different types of proximities. Based on survey data of 295 firms in eight European regions, we show that the...

The evolutionary turn in economic geography has proposed that regional diversification is a path-dependent process whereby new industries grow out of preexisting industrial structures through technologically related localized knowledge spillover. This paper examines if this also applies for...

Over the past two decades, the notion of ‘emergence’ has attracted increasing attention and controversy across the social science, including economics. Within this context, as economic geographers, our concern in this paper is with the usefulness of the idea of emergence for studying the...

Over the past two decades, the notion of ÔemergenceÕ has attracted increasing attention and controversy across the social sciences, as par of a growing interest in the applicability of complexity theory to socio-economic-political systems. Within this context, as economic geographers, our...

There is increasing recognition that the existence of clusters can only be understood when studying their dynamics over time (Audretsch and Feldman 1996; Pouder and St. John 1996; Swann et al. 1998; Maggioni 2002; Brenner 2004; Iammarino and McCann 2006; Menzel and Fornahl 2010; Ter Wal and Boschma 2011). In fact, clusters...

In this paper, we analyze the geography of knowledge spillovers in biotech by investigating the way in which knowledge ties are organized. Following a relational account on knowledge spillovers, we depict knowledge networks as complex evolving structures that build on pre-existing knowledge and...

Despite theoretical and empirical advances, the proximity framework has remained essentially static in that the given proximity between actors explains the extent to which they interact in knowledge networks and profit from such interactions. We propose a dynamic extension of the proximity...

It is argued in this paper that the nature of innovation networks can vary substantially with regard to the type of knowledge that is critical for innovation. Subject to the knowledge base of an industry, networks between companies can differ in various aspects, such as their geographical...

The importance of geographical proximity for interaction and knowledge sharing has been discussed extensively in economic geography in recent years. There is increasing consensus that it is just one out of many types of proximities that might be relevant. We argue that proximity may be a crucial...