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Ecologies of Creativity: The Village, the Group, and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry

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  • Gernot Grabher

    (Socio-Economics of Space, University of Bonn, D-53115 Bonn, Germany)

Abstract

In the 1980s, the hegemony of the large US advertising networks has been challenged by a new breed of London-based agencies who pioneered what is known in the trade as ‘second wave’. On the one hand, second wave implied the emancipation of Soho from an ‘outpost of Madison Avenue’ to the ‘advertising village’ on the basis of momentous product and process innovations. On the other hand, a few London agencies rose to global top positions on the crest of the second wave by transforming themselves from international advertising networks into global communication groups. This paper starts from the assumption that both, the localised cluster of advertising agencies in the advertising village (the ‘Village’) and the global communications group (the ‘Group’), share basic principles of social organisation. It aims at demonstrating that the organisational logic of both the Village and the Group can be conceptualised in terms of a heterarchy. By drawing on case-study evidence from Soho on the one hand and from the world leading communications business, WPP, on the other, the five basic features of heterarchies—diversity, rivalry, tags, projects, and reflexivity—will provide the conceptual tools for the investigation into the social organisation of the Village and the Group.

Suggested Citation

  • Gernot Grabher, 2001. "Ecologies of Creativity: The Village, the Group, and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(2), pages 351-374, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:33:y:2001:i:2:p:351-374
    DOI: 10.1068/a3314
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. West, Douglas, 1988. "Multinational Competition in the British Advertising Agency Business, 1936–1987," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(3), pages 467-501, October.
    2. David Keeble & Lilach Nachum, 1999. "Neo-Marshallian Nodes, Global Networks and Firm Competitiveness: The Media Cluster of Central London," Working Papers wp138, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
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