The Significance of Distance in Innovation Biographies—The Case of Law Firms

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the trajectories of innovation biographies in the service economy utilising the geographic heuristics of physical and relational distances. Drawing on the theoretical literature on the significance of proximity and distance to economic activities, the paper examines three case studies in the law sector. The analysis focuses on the role of the term "innovation" within law businesses and on the interplay of proximities and distances in the case studies. type of business (see, for empirical evidence, Doloreux and Shearmur 2012; Tether, Li and Mina 2012). Second, where literature focuses on distance and investigates its productivity, as in the case of cognitive distance (Nooteboom 1999) or organisational independence (Torre 2008), the focus remains one dimensional.Therefore, as Boschma (2005) and Knoben and Oerlemans (2006) have shown, the concept of proximity and distance should be extended to a wider range of dimensions, such as the social, institutional, and technological. This multidimensionality and the inherently reciprocal interrelationships between these dimensions explain much about the complexity in processes of knowledge generation. Additionally, complexity emerges from the changing nature of relations over the course of innovation processes. This is reflected in research on the temporality of physical co-location (Torre 2008) and on the link between local buzz (physical proximity) and global networks (physical distance;Bathelt, Malmberg and Maskell 2004), which requires convergence of differing networks (Castells 2010) and economic actors to travel regularly (Storper and Venables 2004).This paper analyses innovation processes, focusing in particular on multidimensional relations and how their significance and character change through the process. From this, a discussion of the relationship between proximities and distances emerges.

Open Region: Creating and exploiting opportunities for innovation at the regional scale

“…When reconstructing complex processes of innovation from the initial idea to the practical manifestation (which can but must not be a market entry), it becomes clear that the resources required to realise an innovation are usually socially distributed and spatially dispersed (Baraldi and Strömsten, 2009; Hermelin et al, 2014; Moodysson et al, 2008). Therefore, the conditions necessary for innovations are only exceptionally found in a single location (Hansen, 2014; Stein, 2014). Depending on the phase of an innovation process, different kinds of search logics for resources apply.…”

Local and Global Geographies of Innovation: Structures, Processes, and Geographical Contexts from a Firm Perspective

“…It can also be a way of including a valuable third party opinion. How client involvement forms the content of project is both an issue found in the article by Stein () and Hermelin, Dahlström, and Smas (). Knowledge concerning the client can also be obtained through use of participant observation.…”

“…The three papers selected for this special issue in particular address how , from where (institutionally and geographically), and when knowledge feeds into innovation projects. The empirical evidence covers, respectively, Norway/Spain, Germany, and Sweden and are as follows: Larsen (), “Governance, quality, conventions and product innovation in a value chain: the case of the Spanish salted fish market;” Stein (), “The significance of distance in innovation biographies—the case of law firms;” and Hermelin, Dahlström, and Smas (), “Geographies of knowledge and learning: the example of medical technology.”…”

Choreographies of entrepreneurship. How different formats of co-presence are combined to facilitate knowledge creation in seed accelerator programs

“…Therefore, in this paper, we use the term "relational distance" (Ibert/Müller 2015) as a heuristic to analytically focus the tensions and frictions that are enacted in situations of co-presence and the opportunities for learning that are related to them. We seek to advance a strand of recent literature that explores the productive aspects of distance for knowledge creation (Amin/ Cohendet 2004;Ibert 2010;Grabher/Ibert 2014;Stein 2014).…”