Constructing Innovativeness in New-Media Start-Up Firms

Abstract

We focus on the social construction of innovativeness in the context of project teams and interfirm networks among new-media start-up firms in Silicon Alley, Manhattan. The analysis is based on a total of thirty-four interviews with firm executives and other informants. A brief discussion of the historical and structural context of the research project is followed by an exposition of the theoretical framework, that is, the theory of industrial districts and the hypothesized connection between innovativeness and interactivity. In each of the three subsequent sections of the paper, the empirical findings are presented and analyzed: the grounded conceptions of innovativeness, the two main variants of project organization (self-organized versus managerially coordinated project teams), and the varieties of interfirm networks such as transactional and mixed networks. Other networking practices documented are client relations and hiring. We consider the effect of state-level legal infrastructure and economic deregulation on the business culture of interfirm networking, information sharing, and innovativeness.

Contextualizing Research on Social Capital in Regional Clusters

“…Walker et al ., 1997), or have taken a cognitive approach, focusing on the creation of shared identity (e.g. Heydebrand and Miron, 2002). Many researchers have worked with proxy measures that more or less closely capture the various meanings of social capital in a local setting (Taylor and Leonard, 2002).…”

“…For example, in one setting it may be mostly institutional organizations that translate social capital into cluster competitiveness, as in several German television and film production clusters (Sydow and Staber, 2002). In another setting, it may be mainly direct personal ties within small epistemic communities that create local ‘buzz’ for innovation, as in the new‐media cluster in New York City (Heydebrand and Miron, 2002). To the extent that unobserved contextual attributes are idiosyncratic, studies trying to discover an underlying causal principle will be disappointing.…”

“…When the population reaches the carrying capacity of its environment, resource competition intensifies and the founding rate begins to decline. Social capital may be easier to sustain in a small population of firms, given requirements for face‐to‐face interaction (Heydebrand and Miron, 2002). Thus, to the extent that social capital development depends on the size of a business population, ignoring differences in population size across clusters can lead to substantially different research conclusions (Staber, 1997).…”

Media Geographies: Uncovering the Spatial Politics of Images

“…Recent research on creative production within Internet firms has also emphasized the benefits of the local agglomeration of such firms who share knowledge, organize project teams, and utilize interfirm networks in places like Manhattan's Silicon Alley or San Francisco (cf. Heydebrand and Miron 2002; Zook 2005). 9 But, as Terranova (2000) explains, such communications technologies have also undermined the boundaries between labor and creative expression, as many Internet enthusiasts supply services for online corporations for free, providing what is called ‘gift‐labor’ (e.g.…”

Knowledge transfer across projects: Codification in creative, high-tech and engineering industries

“…as usually practiced in the construction industry). In a study of the organization of project work in the new media industry, Heydebrand and Miron (2002) find that projects are 'self-organized'. In selforganized projects, the project team's knowledge does not correspond to a preordained division of labor, and team coordination does not follow traditional managerial practice.…”