Co-invention networks and inventive productivity in US cities

Abstract

The role of collaboration networks within and across cities as drivers of urban creativity and new knowledge creation is increasingly acknowledged in the literature. We propose that the combination of (1) high internal social proximity between co-inventors within a city and (2) local cliques of inventors in which interaction is dense allows a city to achieve greater inventive creativity. Internal social proximity allows knowledge to circulate quickly across a larger pool of sources; dense cliques promote trust, cooperation, and a more effective use of the acquired knowledge. Moreover, social proximity between a city's inventors and inventors outside the city contributes to enriching and renewing a city's knowledge base by facilitating faster access to fresh external knowledge. We find evidence to support these propositions in a study of the inventive productivity of 331 US cities.

Law, Innovation, and Collaboration in Networked Economy and Society

“…Breschi & Lenzi (2016) provide an overview. When people live in close proximity, formal and informal opportunities for communicating create both rapid diffusion of ideas and novel combinations of ideas that increase the rate of innovation and adoption of productivity-enhancing innovation (Jaffe, Trajtenberg & Henderson 1993).…”

Exploring the Mechanisms through which Strong Ties Impact upon the Development of Ideas in SME Contexts

“…Indeed, empirical research (Sailer ) has noted that various features of the physical space, including the proximity of employees, can affect tie structures and therefore the propensity of individuals to produce ideas in workplace settings. Similarly, Breschi and Lenzi () find that social proximity positively impacts innovativeness because knowledge flows are quickened. Links can therefore be drawn between these findings and those discussed previously (Maimone and Sinclair ; Schilling and Fang ).…”

Why Cities Emerge and Grow? Explanations of Theoretical and Empirical Studies

“…В другой статье (Audretsch, Feldman, 1996) инновационная активность оценивается через создание но-вой продукции, и вывод состоит в том, что тенденция к географической кон-центрации проявляется в тех отраслях, где новые знания особенно важны. Данные обследования по взаимодействию между работниками продемон-стрировали, что коммуникации на рабочих местах оказываются более ак-тивными в городах (Charlot, Duranton, 2004), близость ускоряет инноваци-онные процессы и способствует большему доверию (Breschia, Lenzi, 2016). В эмпирическом исследовании, выполненном на данных испанского рынка труда, показано, что чем крупнее город, тем более успешно проходят там процессы обучения и передачи опыта рабочим (De La Roca, Puga, 2017).…”