Knowledge Clusters and Knowledge Hubs: Designing Epistemic Landscapes for Development

Evers, Hans-Dieter and Gerke, Solvay and Menkhoff, Thomas (2010): Knowledge Clusters and Knowledge Hubs: Designing Epistemic Landscapes for Development. Published in: Journal of Knowledge Managementg , Vol. 14, No. 5 : pp. 678-689.

Abstract

With globalization and knowledge-based production, firms may cooperate on a global scale, outsource parts of their administrative or productive units and negate location altogether. The extremely low transaction costs of data, information and knowledge seem to invalidate the theory of agglomeration and the spatial clustering of firms, going back to the classical work by Alfred Weber and Alfred Marshall, who emphasized the microeconomic benefits of industrial collocation. This paper will argue against this view and show why the growth of knowledge societies will rather increase than decrease the relevance of location by creating knowledge clusters and knowledge hubs, due to sharing of tacit knowledge and research and development outputs. Designing epistemic landscapes of knowledge clusters and hubs is, therefore, proposed as a viable development policy.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: knowledge governance; knowledge cluster; knowledge hub; epistemic landscape; development
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O2 - Development Planning and Policy; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights

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