Kearley, Adrian; (1999) Agglomeration or aggregation? Assessing the success of networking strategies within the cultural industries sector. Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis investigates the development of territorially defined networks of innovative small and medium sized enterprises within the cultural industry sector (CIS). It considers whether these networks provide the basis for enhanced local economic competitiveness, whether they improve the innovative capacity of a locality and whether they stimulate local job creation. Promoted by the local authority under the assumption that a dense clustering of cultural industries are linked together through complex networking patterns, this thesis examines the locational and organisational characteristics of Sheffield's CIS. Theoretically this investigation is set within the context of three inter-related academic debates, drawn upon either implicitly or explicitly within Sheffield's cultural industry policy. Firstly, neo-Schumpeterian theorists propose that driving economic growth are those industries that are the most innovative in their technological and organisational dimensions. Secondly, the notion of flexible specialisation is deployed to illustrate how small firms frequently offer the most adaptable responses to specialised patterns of production and consumption. Thirdly, the concept of new industrial districts is evoked to characterise how innovative and flexible enterprises frequently aggregate in distinct spatial clusters (Piore and Sabel, 1984). Proponents of the new industrial district thesis proclaim that sustaining such industrial clusters is a set of complex organisational networks between inter-related firms. Firms utilise their close spatial proximity to one another to reduce transaction costs, to exchange information and to share common support structures. This thesis analyses whether strategic interventions in Sheffield's CIS have been correct to draw upon the theoretically grounded assumption that the creation of a cluster of associated industries will lead to inter-firm networking. It asks whether the networking hypothesis actually applies to the cultural industries or whether the attraction of cultural industries has merely produced an aggregation of relatively unconnected businesses, or businesses that are connected to quite different networks. While the former outcome suggests that networking strategies offer a realistic approach of encouraging local economic development, the latter outcome suggests that business activity in the cultural industries is more of a chaotic concept than proponents of networked production have proposed. I conclude that although networking patterns in Sheffield's CIS are pronounced these networks operate only at the lower level of the industrial system and are rarely used to enhance the innovative capacity of individual firms.

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