Innovation in cultural industries: The role of university links
Elena Zukauskaite
CIRCLE (Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in Learning Economy); Department of Social and Economic Geography, Lund University, Sweden
Abstract
This paper analyses the role of university knowledge in the innovation processes of cultural industries. Most studies of cultural industries highlight the importance of locally clustered firms in innovation processes. Those that analyze university-industry collaboration focus on the technological development or industrial R&D, but neglect cultural industries as objects of analysis. The paper addresses this gap in the literature while analyzing collaboration with university patterns and innovation processes of new media firms in Scania, Southern Sweden. The findings reveal that innovation, influenced by industry-academia collaboration, takes place not only in technology based industries. Collaborative aspects of innovation processes go beyond R&D transfer and include joint competence building, changes in market concepts and new social corporate responsibility actions. This paper adds to the understanding of innovation processes in cultural industries by introducing the university as one more important actor in the knowledge exchange networks.
Keywords
University–industry collaboration; innovation; cultural industries; new media; knowledge exchange
Article Text
Cultural industries and knowledge economy
For more than a decade the contemporary economy has been described as 'knowledge-based', which means that knowledge has been recognized as the driver of productivity and economic growth, leading to a new focus on the role of information, technology and learning in economic performance (OECD, 1996). As knowledge creation has an impact on the economy, and innovation is a matter of producing new knowledge or combining existing (and sometimes new) elements of knowledge in new ways (Edquist, 2005), one can say that innovation is a driver of economic development. The very first proponent of this idea was Schumpeter who, in the early 1900s, described economic development as a process of qualitative change, driven by innovation, that took place in historical time (from Fagerberg, 2005).
The systems of innovation approach claims that firms do not innovate in isolation, but interact with other organizations (Edquist, 2005). As universities are important and useful generators of knowledge they become crucial partners in innovation activities (Coenen, 2007). According to the framework of constructed regional advantage (Asheim, Cooke, Annerstedt, & Boschma, 2006), the public sector (especially universities) should take a more active role in collaborating with industry. Traditionally associated with basic research, education and peer-review, universities have been asked for social and economical accountability (Steen & Enders, 2008).
These changes have created new opportunities and challenges for academia. The new concepts of 'academic entrepreneurship' (Klofsten & Jones-Evans, 2000) and 'entrepreneurial university'(Vickers, Salamo, Loewer, & Ahlen, 2001) have been introduced in the academic analysis of university-industry relations. Four major research streams have emerged in this area of study: entrepreneurial research university, productivity of technology transfer office, new firm creation and environmental context including network of innovation (Rothaermel, Agung, & Jiang, 2007). A taxonomy of the literature by Rothaermal et al. (2007) reveals that in most of the articles the unit of analysis is the university. The literature analyzing how this collaboration affects firms concentrates mostly on high-tech sectors such as ICT and biotechnology. In many cases the companies are influenced through technology transfer - licensing and spin-off activities. The research on innovation networks highlights the benefits of such networks to technology-based firms (Rothaermel, et al., 2007). Additionally, the majority of studies concentrate either on large enterprises with developed R&D activities (e.g. Fabrizio, 2006) or spin-offs from the university (Grandi & Grimaldi, 2003; Johansson, Jacob, & Hellström, 2005; Pérez & Sánchez, 2003). Discussions on the impact of academia-industry relations on other types of firms are lacking. The aim of this study is to analyze how (if at all) relations with academia influence the innovation performance of new media firms. Such an analysis could at least partly fill the current gap in the literature on academia-industry relations.
New media is a creative/artistic sector that is continuously challenged by the emergence of new technologies, but it is an artistic nature that defines its specificity. According to Asheim, Coenen, Moodysson, and Vang (2007), there are three types of knowledge bases: analytical (scientific), synthetic (engineering) and symbolic (artistic). Knowledge creation and mode of innovation of firms are strongly shaped by their specific knowledge base. Firms operating in the new media sector are usually classified as the ones with a dominating symbolic knowledge base (Martin & Moodysson, 2011). Even if some firms have analytical or synthetic competences in-house, it is the symbolic ones that define their competitiveness in the market.
A common theoretical assumption is that relations with universities are of minor importance for art industries (Asheim, et al., 2007; Davis, Creutzberg, & Arthurs, 2009; Miles & Green, 2008). However, new media firms tend to cluster around universities (Martin & Moodysson, 2011; Picard, 2008). Additionally, recent findings by Martin, Moodysson, and Zukauskaite (2011) reveal that new media firms make strong demands for support from the public sector in striving to acquire technological knowledge. According to the authors, symbolic knowledge based industries do not produce new technology but need it as an input and tool in the creation of cultural artifacts. This suggests that a university link might play a role in the innovation activities of new media firms. This paper tests this claim empirically, by analyzing how (if at all) relations with universities affect the innovativeness of new media firms in Scania (the southernmost region in Sweden).
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