Researchers of related topics agree that the large-scale top-down development of a creative cluster by a real estate developer may obstruct rather than facilitate creativity and creative entrepreneurialism. OCT Loft, a design industry park in Shenzhen, China, is being celebrated as an exception. Based on analyses of primary and secondary data, we find that the Loft's success can be attributed to two factors. First, the choice of design as the target industry was appropriate. Design is a fast-growing industry and thus needs space for expansion. Second, the developer chose tenants with good reputations in the industry rather than those offering the highest rent. Both these factors are difficult to implement. First, a growing industry is hard to find in a city where urban regeneration is needed. Second, the majority of developers cannot pass up maximising rent for a good reputation as OCT did. Indeed, OCT was able to pursue the Loft's creative success because giving a good impression to potential clients was expected to result in future opportunities that would raise profit further. In sum, a large-scale top-down development can facilitate creative entrepreneurialism but only when the developer is not hasty in demanding an immediate return on investment.
Knowledge learning and diffusion have long been discussed in the literature on the dynamics of industrial clusters, but recent literature provides little evidence for how different actors serve as knowledge brokers in the upgrading process of apprentice-based clusters, and does not dynamically consider how to preserve the sustainability of these clusters. This paper uses empirical evidence from an antique furniture manufacturing cluster in Xianyou, Fujian Province, in southeastern China, to examine the growth trajectory of the knowledge learning system of an antique furniture manufacturing cluster. It appears that the apprentice-based learning system is crucial during early stages of the cluster evolution, but later becomes complemented and relatively substituted by the role of both local governments and focal outsiders. This finding addresses the context of economic transformation and provides empirical insights into knowledge acquisition in apprentice-based clusters to question the rationality based on European and North American cases, and to provide a broader perspective for policy makers to trigger and sustain the development of apprentice-based clusters.
Champions of creative economy maintain that, unlike labor in manufacturing, labor in the creative industries is independent and innovative. They also claim that we are witnessing a linear transition from a manual to a creative labor-based economy. We argue against this idea of a sweeping, historical transition and instead posit that the labor process can easily switch from one to the other, depending on market conditions. We illustrate this theoretical point through an empirical study of the classic furniture industry cluster in Xianyou, China. Until around 2005, the region housed a typical low-skill, low-value added manufacturing cluster of small size. Since then it quickly transformed into a creative industry cluster where a small number of craftsmen performed both creative and manual work. However, the recent growth in the demand for classic furniture has enabled firms to mechanize the production process thereby creating new divisions of labor and turning the majority of the workforce into simple manual workers. At the same time, those who specialize in what remains creative in the production process are now liberated from manual work and enjoy greater creative freedom and higher status. Based on these findings, we conclude that, the transformation between creative and non-creative labor is reversible, industry-specific, and contingent upon the market rather than irreversible and economy-wide.
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