IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this paper or follow this series

Creativity, cities and innovation

Author Info

  • Lee, Neil
  • Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés

Abstract

The creative industries have long been seen as an innovative sector. More recent research posits that creative occupations are also a fundamental, but overlooked, driver of innovation. Theory also suggests cities are important for both creative industries and occupations, with urban environments helping firms innovate. Yet little empirical work has considered the links between creative industries, occupations, cities and innovation at the firm level. This paper addresses this gap using a sample of over 9,000 UK SMEs. Our results stress that creative industries firms are more likely to introduce original product innovations, but not those learnt from elsewhere. Creative occupations, however, appear a more robust general driver of innovation. We find no support for the hypothesis that urban creative industries firms are particularly innovative. However, creative occupations are used in cities to introduce product innovations learnt elsewhere. The results suggest future work needs to seriously consider the importance of occupations in empirical studies of innovation.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/48758/1/MPRA_paper_48758.pdf
File Function: original version
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 48758.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: Jul 2013
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:48758
Contact details of provider: Postal: Schackstr. 4, D-80539 Munich, Germany
Phone: +49-(0)89-2180-2219
Fax: +49-(0)89-2180-3900
Web page: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de
More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Innovation; Creative Industries; Creative Occupations; Cities; Learning;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
  • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
  • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
  • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Neil Lee & Max Nathan, 2011. "Does Cultural Diversity Help Innovation in Cities: Evidence from London Firms," SERC Discussion Papers 0069, Spatial Economics Research Centre, LSE.
  2. Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci, 2012. "Education or Creativity: What Matters Most for Economic Performance?," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 88(4), pages 369-401, October.
  3. Rune Dahl Fitjar & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2011. "When local interaction does not suffice: Sources of firm innovation in urban Norway," Working Papers 2011-05, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
  4. Richard Florida & Charlotta Mellander & Kevin Stolarick, 2008. "Inside the black box of regional development: human capital, the creative class and tolerance," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(5), pages 615-649, September.
  5. Robert Huggins & Nick Clifton, 2011. "Competitiveness, creativity, and place-based development," Environment and Planning A, Pion Ltd, London, vol. 43(6), pages 1341-1362, June.
  6. Gilles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2000. "Nursery Cities: Urban Diversity, Process Innovation and the Life-Cycle of Products," CEP Discussion Papers dp0445, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  7. Ian R. Gordon & Philip McCann, 2005. "Innovation, agglomeration, and regional development," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(5), pages 523-543, October.
  8. Ron A. Boschma & Michael Fritsch, 2009. "Creative Class and Regional Growth: Empirical Evidence from Seven European Countries," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(4), pages 391-423, October.
  9. Roman Martin & Jerker Moodysson, 2010. "Innovation in Symbolic Industries: The Geography and Organization of Knowledge Sourcing," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(7), pages 1183-1203, September.
  10. Roberta Comunian & Alessandra Faggian & Qian Cher Li, 2010. "Unrewarded careers in the creative class: The strange case of bohemian graduates," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 89(2), pages 389-410, 06.
  11. Rune Dahl Fitjar & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2009. "Innovating in the periphery: Firms, values, and innovation in Southwest Norway," Working Papers 2009-13, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
  12. Pierre Therrien, 2005. "City and innovation: Different size, different strategy," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(6), pages 853-877, September.
  13. Ann Markusen, 2006. "Urban development and the politics of a creative class: evidence from a study of artists," Environment and Planning A, Pion Ltd, London, vol. 38(10), pages 1921-1940, October.
  14. Alex Coad & Rekha Rao, 2007. "Innovation and Firm Growth in High-Tech Sectors: A Quantile Regression Approach," Open Discussion Papers in Economics 57, The Open University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics.
  15. Gernot Grabher, 2001. "Ecologies of creativity: the Village, the Group, and the heterarchic organisation of the British advertising industry," Environment and Planning A, Pion Ltd, London, vol. 33(2), pages 351-374, February.
  16. Peter Sunley & Steven Pinch & Suzanne Reimer & James Macmillen, 2008. "Innovation in a creative production system: the case of design," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(5), pages 675-698, September.
  17. Mark Freel & Richard Harrison, 2006. "Innovation and cooperation in the small firm sector: Evidence from 'Northern Britain'," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 289-305.
  18. Peter Wood, 2009. "Service Competitiveness and Urban Innovation Policies in the UK: The Implications of the 'London Paradox'," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(8), pages 1047-1059.
  19. Gernot Grabher, 2002. "The Project Ecology of Advertising: Tasks, Talents and Teams," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 245-262.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Neil Lee & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2014. "Innovation in creative cities: Evidence from British small firms," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1422, Utrecht University, Section of Economic Geography, revised Nov 2014.
  2. Stephan Brunow & Bastian Stockinger, 2013. "Establishments' and Regions' Cultural Diversity as a Source of Innovation: Evidence from Germany," Norface Discussion Paper Series 2013022, Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:48758. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Ekkehart Schlicht)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.