Neo-Marshallian Nodes, Institutional Thickness, and Britain's ‘Motor Sport Valley’: Thick or Thin?

Abstract

The authors consider the insights into the concept of institutional thickness provided by the industrial cluster located in southern England commonly referred to as ‘Motor Sport Valley’. It is argued that, although Amin and Thrift's original formulation of the concept of institutional thickness was comprehensive in scope, subsequent debate has focused around a somewhat restricted definition—essentially that of overt regionally based public, or quasi-public, institutions. The success of Motor Sport Valley in the absence of such infrastructure points to other sources of institutional strength and highlights the fact that all economic systems are constituted and mediated through a variety of types of institutional structure. The crucial issue when considering economic development, therefore, is not whether economically successful regions contain sources of institutional thickness, but rather the precise nature of the institutions in the area (and those influencing it from the outside) and their relationship with economic growth.

Drivers of University–Industry Links: The Case of Knowledge-Intensive Business Service Firms in Rural Locations

“…Typically, non-spatial proximity is conceptualised in terms of the similarities between agents based on: shared knowledge bases or skills (cognitive proximity); shared methods and procedures (organisational proximity); shared relationships (social proximity); and shared culture (institutional proximity) (Aguilera et al 2012). In addition, the importance of epistemic communities has also been highlighted as an important determinant of collaborative links (Cowan et al 2000) as well as shared codebooks (Pinch et al 2003;Henry & Pinch 2001). …”

“…Accordingly, a large proportion of the extant literature highlights the crucial role of geographic proximity in developing University-Industry (U-I) links (D' Este & Iammarino 2010;Muscio 2013). The latter promotes the effective transfer of knowledge through membership of similar epistemic communities, shared language and culture (Cowan et al 2000;Henry & Pinch 2001). Similarly, organisational proximity has also been demonstrated to be an important determinant of U-I links (D'Este et al 2013).…”

Sustaining Regional Advantages in Manufacturing: Skill Accumulation of Rural–Urban Migrant Workers in the Coastal Area of China

“…As investors for human growth of laborers [1], these intermediary institutions limit the detrimental effects of market failures [55]. The high levels of close interaction and coalition amongst many diverse institutions [64,65] produces a high innovative capacity [66] and can promote knowledge diffusion between firms and knowledge-intensive institutions [65]. The relationship of RUMWs with these organizations may be direct individual-organization contact, or an indirect, inter-organizational connection through the firms the RUMWs work in.…”

The Effects of Exogenous Shocks on the Development of Regional Innovation Systems

“…Several studies have adopted the concept of institutional thickness to investigate regional phenomena, most of which appear to belong in the institutional theory domain (e.g. Keeble et al, 1999;Henry and Pinch, 2001;Tödtling et al, 2011;Chaminade and Plechero, 2015).…”

“…A further suggestion for future research could be to employ an institutional approach in order to expose more 134 detailed insights about the underlying institutional and sociocultural structures that influence the ability of regions to react and adapt to changing environments (Amin and Thrift, 1994;1995). For example, scholars could operationalise the four factors of institutional thickness in RIS as proposed by Amin and Thrift (1994;Henry and Pinch, 2001). Finally, further research should continue to examine in greater detail the way in which RIS emerge and evolve over time.…”