Clark University | Economic Geography Journal

Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography -- Venture Capital in the "Periphery": The New Argonauts, Global Search, and Local Institution Building, by AnnaLee Saxenian and Charles Sabel

Abstract: This article examines the growing importance of global, or external, search networks that firms and other actors rely on to locate collaborators who can solve part of a problem they face or require part of a solution they may be able provide. We focus on the creation in emerging economies of venture capital -- an institution that is organized to search systematically for, and foster the development of, firms and industries that can, in turn, collaborate in codesign. The article examines the case of Taiwan, where first-generation immigrant professionals from U.S. technology industries have collaborated with their home-country counterparts to develop the context for entrepreneurial development. It refers to the members of these networks as the new Argonauts, an allusion to the ancient Greek Jason and the Argonauts, who searched for the Golden Fleece. We also argue that the most significant contributions of these skilled professionals to their home countries are not direct transfers of technology or knowledge, but participation in external search and domestic institutional reform. The new Argonauts are ideally positioned to search beyond prevailing routines to identify opportunities for complementary "peripheral" participation in the global economy and to work with public officials to adapt and redesign relevant institutions and firms in their native countries. They are, therefore, exemplary protagonists of "self-discovery" -- the process by which an enterprise or entrepreneur determines which markets it can serve -- and of a microlevel institutional reform that can, diffusing and cascading, ultimately produce wider structural transformations.

Key words: venture capital, institutions, regional economic development, diaspora, high technology.

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The Places of Primitive Accumulation in Rural China, by Michael Webber

Abstract: "Rural" is a category of enduring significance in China. The trajectories of social change in China's rural areas reflect local dynamics and new forms of economy that encroach from local or distant cities and international sources. One indicator of change is the separation of people from their means of production: the development of the preconditions for capitalist production. Using information from villages scattered across China, this article identifies the sources of this separation and poses a theoretical question: can these changes be comprehended in a nondeterministic manner? The article demonstrates that the principal means of separating rural people from their means of production have been market based and largely local (reflecting forces within China), supplemented, however, by forcible dispossession. It also shows that the processes that drive primitive accumulation do not simply reflect an economic logic; they include environmental modernization, ethnic politics, nation building, and personal motives. The extraeconomic bases of economic change imply that primitive accumulation is not a process on a path to a known end point or to a predictable geography.

Key words: capitalism, China, rural areas, primitive accumulation, dispossession, teleology.

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Cyclical Clusters in Global Circuits: Overlapping Spaces in Furniture Trade Fairs, by Dominic Power and Johan Jansson

Abstract: This article contributes to an understanding of temporary or event-based economic phenomena in economic and industrial geography by drawing on research conducted on the furniture and interior design industry. It argues that trade fairs should be seen not simply as temporary industry gatherings, but as central, though temporary, spaces for knowledge and market processes that symbolize microcosms of the industry they represent and function as effective marketplaces. It suggests that these temporary events should be viewed not as isolated from one another, but as arranged together in an almost continual global circuit. In this sense, trade fairs are less temporary clusters than they are cyclical clusters; they are complexes of overlapping spaces that are scheduled and arranged in such a way that spaces can be reproduced, reenacted, and renewed over time. Although actual fairs are short-lived events, their presence in the business cycle has lasting consequences for the organization of markets and industries and for the firms of which they are comprised.

Key words: economic geography, cyclical clusters, global circuits, overlapping spaces, trade fairs and exhibitions, furniture industry.

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Principles and Practices of Knowledge Creation: On the Organization of "Buzz" and "Pipelines" in Life Science Communities, by Jerker Moodysson

Abstract: This 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.

Key words: biotechnology, innovation, proximity, embeddedness, Medicon Valley.

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