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Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 28, No. 1,
31-56 (2004)
DOI: 10.1191/0309132504ph469oa
Clusters and knowledge: local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation
Harald Bathelt
Faculty of Geography, Philipps-University of Marburg, Deutschhausstraße 10, D-35032 Marburg, Germany
Anders Malmberg
Department of Social and Economic Geography, and Centre for Research on Innovation and Industrial Dynamics (CIND), Uppsala University, PO Box 513, S-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Peter Maskell
Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics (DRUID), Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy (IVS), Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Howitzvej 60, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
The paper is concerned with spatial clustering of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in interactive learning processes. It questions the view that tacit knowledge transfer is confined to local milieus whereas codified knowledge may roam the globe almost frictionlessly. The paper highlights the conditions under which both tacit and codified knowledge can be exchanged locally and globally. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, the learning processes taking place among actors embedded in a community by just being there dubbed buzz and, on the other, the knowledge attained by investing in building channels of communication called pipelines to selected providers located outside the local milieu. It is argued that the co-existence of high levels of buzz and many pipelines may provide firms located in outward-looking and lively clusters with a string of particular advantages not available to outsiders. Finally, some policy implications, stemming from this argument, are identified.
Key Words: knowledge creation • clusters • buzz • pipelines • absorptive capacity
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