Recent debates on learning have shifted the analytical focus from formal organizational arrangements to informal personal ties. Personal knowledge networks, though, mostly are perceived as homogenous, cohesive, and local personal ties. Moreover, a functionalist tone seems to prevail in accounts in which personal knowledge networks are seen to compensate the shortcomings of the formal organization. This paper sets out to expand the dominant construal of networks, which is largely molded by the notion of embeddedness. Against the background of in-depth empirical analysis of the project ecologies of the Hamburg advertising and the Munich software business, the paper will first venture into the neglected sphere of thin, ephemeral, and global personal knowledge networks by differentiating between connectivity, sociality, and communality networks. Second, the paper not only elucidates the supportive functions of these ties but also explores the tensions between personal interests, project goals, and the firm's aims that are induced by these personal knowledge networks.

Despite the universal mantra that “the customer is king,” the role of the customer has so far seemed to have been confined to a passive recipient of products. Recently, however, this traditional perception has been challenged. On the one hand, users are increasingly appreciated as reflexive actors who are actively involved in the evaluation, modif ication, and configuration of products. On the other hand, beyond the established repertoire to access external knowledge through interorganizational networks, firms increasingly attempt to harness user knowledge. These two concurrent shifts do not result in a smooth convergence. Rather, they open up a highly contested terrain in which habitual distinctions between the producer and user are blurred. In this article, we map the evolving terrain of user‐producer interaction in innovation processes. Specifically, we contrast more traditional approaches to incorporate customer knowledge with an emerging class of innovative user‐producer relationships, provisionally dubbed “co‐development.” We then propose a typology of different modes of codevelopment that is organized along two dimensions: the degree of user involvement and the prevailing locus of knowledge production. This typology seeks to capture the heterogeneity of co‐development approaches and to provide a conceptual template for further empirical research on user involvement in innovation.

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In this article, we seek to contribute to cultural-economic geography debates on the social construction of economic value. We widen the focus on already well-studied associations between branded commodities and other entities representing nonmonetary values by also considering what we refer to as ‘dissociations’. Dissociation denotes practices of weakening or obscuring negative links between a branded commodity and other entities in order to let the desired associations overrule undesired ones. We highlight the strategic agency behind such dissociations and thus focus on actors’ proactive relational work to prevent negative associations from becoming salient as well as their reactive practices of managing reputational crises. The article situates the study of dissociations in human geography and pays particular attention to the geographies of dissociation along territorial, relational, and topological lines.

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IBERT O. (2007) Towards a geography of knowledge creation: the ambivalences between 'knowledge as an object' and 'knowing in practice', Regional Studies 41, 103 -114. This paper juxtaposes two strategies to conceive human expertise and unveils how they mould one's imagination on the spatiality of innovation processes. While the noun 'knowledge' signifies a rationalistic approach and entails a geography that propels an 'argument of agglomeration', the verb 'knowing' denotes a situated-in-practice understanding and inheres an 'argument of place'. The paper discusses in how far an extension of the so far less influential practice view might complement the more traditional agglomeration accounts. The ontological discrepancies between both approaches can be used as theoretical springboards to illuminate more fully the key ambivalences of a geography of knowledge creation. InnovationKnowledge creation Communities of practice Epistemic communities Agglomeration Place IBERT O. (2007) Vers une géographie de la création des connaissances: entre 'les connaissances comme objet' et 'connaître en pratique', Regional Studies 41, 103 -114. Cet article cherche à juxtaposer deux stratégies visant la conception des compétences humaines et à dévoiler comment elles façonnent l'imagination quant aux retombées spatiales du processus d'innovation. Alors que le nom 'connaissances' indique une approche rationaliste et nécessite une géographie qui met l'accent sur un 'argument en faveur de la notion d'agglomération', le verbe 'connaître' signifie une compréhension plus localisée dans la pratique et implique un 'argument en faveur de la notion de lieu'. Cet article discute jusqu'à quel point un élargissement de ce dernier, moins suivi jusqu'ici, pourrait compléter les comptes-rendus traditionnels. Les écarts ontologiques entre les deux approches peuvent se servir de tremplin théorique afin d'éclaircir les attitudes ambivalentes à l'égard d'une géographie de la création des connaissances. Innovation Création des connaissances Communautés de pratique Communautés de connaissances Aggloméra-tion Lieu IBERT O. (2007) Auf dem Weg zu einer Geographie der Wissenserzeugung: Die Ambivalenzen zwischen Wissen als Objekt und Wissen als Praxis, Regional Studies 41, 103 -114. Der Beitrag vergleicht zwei grundlegende Strategien, Wissen konzeptionell zu fassen, und legt offen, wie diese Strategien unsere Vorstellungen der räumlichen Organisation von Innovationsprozessen beeinflussen. Während das Nomen 'knowledge' für eine rationalistische Strategie die Wissen als Objekt ansieht steht und eine Geographie des Lernens entwirft, die sich um ein Agglomerationsargument herum gruppiert, wird das Verb 'knowing' in einem Ansatz gebraucht, der Wissen als situiert in Praxis begreift und dessen Geographie durch das Orteargument umrissen werden kann. Der Beitrag diskutiert, inwieweit das bisher weniger einflussreiche Praxisverständnis von Wissen stärker gewichtet und als komplementär zum traditionelleren Agglomerationsargument angesehen werden sollte. Die ontologischen ...

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The sparks of innovation need tension. Innovation emerges, for instance, at the intersection of theory and application (Gibbons et al, 1994) or during interaction between sophisticated users and producers (Rosenberg, 1982;von Hippel, 1988). Innovation needs professional rivalry (Grabher, 2002), cognitive distance (Nooteboom, 2001), and, in critical moments, even conflict (Schoenberger, 1997). So far, economic geographers have remained relatively silent when it comes to theorizing the spatial consequences of this aspect of innovation. Although the notion of`relational distance' leaves a gap within economic geographic taxonomies for cultural tensions of all kinds, most theorists have avoided scrutinizing its nature in greater detail. Rather, geographies of innovation are primarily concerned with the outcomes of physical proximity (knowledge clusters, localized learning) and relational proximity (trust, shared institutional settings).My aim in this paper is to discuss and explore empirically how far the notion of relational distance might contribute to a deeper understanding of the spatiality of innovation processes. In this paper I revise what is already known about relational distance and propose an operational definition in which relational distance is regarded (1) as a multidimensional concept, (2) as interactional effect, and (3) as being enacted in practice. I then illustrate this understanding empirically. In an ethnographic case studyöthe development biography of a sensor system designed to detect biological molecules in very small quantitiesöknowledge practices unfold around the relational distance between science and business (see also Colyvas and Powell, 2006;Lam, 2007;Mowery et al, 2004;Shane, 2004). This case exemplifies that innovation practices not only expose the involved actors to competing systems of incentives, norms, and rules, but also intertwine practical activities which would otherwise be segregated in time and space. The resulting time^spatial tensionsönamely, effects of dislocation, ambiguities of knowledge allocation, and opportunity costs of professional mobilityöare elucidated. I conclude by discussing some wider implications for economic geography.