Psychology and the Geography of Innovation

Abstract

Intangibles such as tolerance, creativity and trust are increasingly seen as important for the geography of innovation. Yet these factors have often been poorly approximated in empirical research which has used generalised proxy measures to account for subtle personal differences. This paper argues that the psychological literature on personality traits can help address this issue and so provide important insights into the socio-institutional determinants of innovation. It uses a unique, largescale psychological survey to investigate the relationship between the "Big Five" personality traits commonly used in psychology -openness to experience, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness -and patenting in travel-to-work areas in England and Wales. The main personality trait associated with innovation is conscientiousness, a trait defined by organization, hard work and task completion. Instrumental variable analysis using religious observance in 1851 suggests that this is a causal relationship. Research on the role of intangibles in innovation has been preoccupied by factors such as creativity and trust. The results here suggests that a new focus is needed on hard work and organizational ability.

Does network position foster knowledge production? Evidence from international scientific collaboration network

“…Since the publication of the seminal work of Griliches (), knowledge production has been an important topic in economic geography and regional science (Audretsch & Keilbach, ; Charlot, Crescenzi, & Musolesi, ; Crescenzi & Jaax, ; Jaffe, ; Lee, ; Miguelez & Moreno, ; Ó hUallacháin, & Leslie, ; Ponds, Oort, & Frenken, ). The knowledge production model assumes that the functional relationship between knowledge output and knowledge input is linear, the former mainly depends on a set of inputs, such as research and development expenditure (RDE) or human capital (Charlot et al, ; Lee, ). The new growth theory and knowledge‐based economy have emphasized the importance of knowledge production or science and technology, which are regarded as the sources of economic growth (Lucas, ; Nelson, ; OECD, ; Romer, ).…”

“…One stream of the literature has adopted the regional knowledge production function approach based on the spatial econometrics techniques, which has been taken as a powerful tool for capturing spatial spillover effects (Basile & Mínguez, ) and is based on the assumption that geography is a channel for spillovers (Charlot et al, ; Ó hUallacháin, & Leslie, ; Ponds et al, ). The related literature has initially highlighted the spatial weight matrix, the parametric estimation methods and the importance of tangible inputs, however, recently the focus has shifted to network weight matrix, the semiparametric estimation methods, and intangible factors (Basile & Mínguez, ; Charlot et al, ; Hazır, LeSage, & Autant‐Bernard, ; Lee, ; Maggioni at al., ; Miguelez & Moreno, ; Ponds et al, ). Another stream has taken social network analysis technique, a promising tool for capturing the structure and dynamics of relational spillovers effects, to enrich the literature on knowledge spillovers (Araújo, Gonçalves, & Taveira, ; Boschma & Ter Wal, ; Breschi & Lenzi, ; Fleming, King, & Juda, ; Gluckler, ; Ter Wal & Boschma, ).…”

Human behaviour and economic growth: A psychocultural perspective on local and regional development

“…Rentfrow et al (2015) find a positive link between economic prosperity and openness and extraversion, whilst conscientiousness displays a negative association. This is interesting, as Lee (2017) finds that conscientiousness in England and Wales is positively associated with innovation as captured by patenting activity.…”

“…Given the success of the dominant regions of London, the South East, and East of England it may be expected that localities displaying higher levels of Individual Commitment and Diverse Extraversion would be most successful. Individually Committed psychocultural characteristics may promote some activities associated with growth, but suppress others, as it incorporates the higher conscientiousness that Lee (2017) associates with innovation. However, openness is low, whilst adherence to social rules are high, which others suggest would not benefit entrepreneurial activities (Obschonka et al, 2013(Obschonka et al, , 2015Rentfrow et al, 2015;Huggins and Thompson, 2016).…”

Big Data, artificial intelligence and the geography of entrepreneurship in the United States

“…This attention has, according to Huggins & Thompson (2017), spurred an interest in new measures and aspects of culture taken from psychological research, such as regional personality differences (Hofstede & McCrae, 2004;McCrae, 2001;Rentfrow, Gosling, Jokela, Stillwell, Kosinski, & Potter, 2013) and in how personality differences in the cultural make-up of territories affect regional economic trajectories (Lee, 2017;.…”