Abstract
The hermeneutic approach to a proper understanding of the processes of knowledge creation that is proposed by the editors of this book is indubitably a cognitive turn in the economic literature on innovation, and it may be a first step in the construction of a new scientific paradigm. What is more interesting for a regional scientist is the new interpretation of the generative role of space that the hermeneutic approach proposes. This interpretation, which is mainly presented in the general introduction and in the contributions of the two editors, builds and accumulates new fruitful perspectives on the achievements of the neo-Marshallian school (Becattini, Rivista di economia e politica industriale, 1, 35, 1979; Becattini, Industrial districts and inter-firm cooperation in Italy. International Institute for Labour Studies, 1990; Garofoli, Economic Notes, 19(1), 37–54, 1989; Vazquez-Barquero, Endogenous development: Networking, innovation, institutions and cities. Routledge, 2002; Boix & Trullen, Papers in Regional Science, 84(4), 551–574, 2007) and of the ‘evolutionary regional economics’ research programme carried forward by the GREMI network with the concept of innovative milieu as a relational space and an operator for the reduction of dynamic uncertainty in innovation processes (Aydalot, Milieux innovateurs en Europe. GREMI, 1986; Camagni, Innovation networks: Spatial perspectives. London: Belhaven-Pinter, 1991; Camagni & Maillat, Milieux innovateurs. Théories et politiques, Economica, 2006).
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Notes
- 1.
English translation of a seminal paper published in Italian (Becattini, 1979).
- 2.
Cusinato (2015) interestingly underlines the “amazing” fact that creativity is indirectly implied by—as a by-product of—bounded rationality.
- 3.
The large company is able to control complexity and uncertainty by managing bounded rationality: R&D divisions mainly perform the selection and ‘transcoding’ functions of information; the necessary internal integration of departments is guaranteed through informal meetings or formal coordination; market demand and needs may be artificially driven; competitors may be controlled through agreements, financial power, other forms of ‘suasion’ (Camagni, 1991). This represents one of the possible organisational forms of a milieu.
- 4.
The city “produces intelligence: it chokes internal uniformity and develops with the shock of diversity” (our translation) (Ansay & Schoonbrodt, 1989, p. 18).
- 5.
In an only partially different context, when discussing territorial competitiveness, the present author emphasised the need to overcome methodological individualism by giving full recognition to the role of territory: “if individual firms and individual people undertake collective activities, facilitated by (and creators of) trust and local social capital; and if significant cognitive synergies, readily apparent in the local milieu, result from their various interactions; and finally if these actions and these processes draw additional vitality from cooperation with local public administrations; then it appears justifiable to go beyond methodological individualism - which regards only single firms as operating and competing - arguing the logical validity of a ‘collective’ concept such as that of territory, and to affirm that territories compete among themselves, using the creation of collective strategies as their instrument.” (Camagni, 2002, p. 2406).
- 6.
The recent French strategy of building regional ‘pôles de compétitivité’, to date quite successful (Musso, 2014), is based on similar conceptual premises.
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Camagni, R. (2016). Towards Creativity-Oriented Innovation Policies Based on a Hermeneutic Approach to the Knowledge-Space Nexus. In: Cusinato, A., Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A. (eds) Knowledge-creating Milieus in Europe. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45173-7_14
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