Karen R. Polenske is Professor of Regional Political Economy and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This critical addition to the growing literature on innovation contains extensive analyses of the institutional and spatial aspects of innovation. Written by leading scholars in the fields of economic geography, innovation studies, planning, and technology policy, the fourteen chapters cover conceptual and measurement issues in innovation and relevant technology policies. The contributors examine how different institutional factors facilitate or hamper the flows of information and knowledge within and across firms, regions, and nations. In particular, they provide insights into the roles of important institutions such as gender and culture which are often neglected in the innovation literature, and demonstrate the key role which geography plays in the innovation process. Institutions and policy measures which support entrepreneurship and cluster development are also discussed. The result is a comparative picture of the institutional factors underlying innovation systems across the globe.

Part I Concepts and measurements in innovation

1 Introduction

2 Measurement of the clustering and dispersion of innovation

3 Measuring the geography of innovation: a literature review

4 Employment growth and clusters dynamics of creative industries in Great Britain

Part II Institutional and spatial aspects of information and knowledge flows

5 Tacit knowledge in production systems: how important is geography?

6 The self-aware firm: information needs, acquisition strategies, and utilization prospects

7 Theorizing the gendered institutional bases of innovative regional economies

8 Multinationals and transnational social space for learning: knowledge creation and transfer through global

9 Brain circulation and regional innovation: the Silicon Valle-Hsinch-Shanghai triangle

Part III Institutions and innovation systems

10 National systems of production, innovations and competence building

11 Perspectives on entrepreneurship and cluster formation: biotechnology in the US Capitol region

12 Facilitating enterprising places: the role of intermediaries in the United States and United Kingdom

13 Innovation, integration, and technology upgrading in contemporary Chinese industry

14 Society, community, and development: a tale of two regions