Johannes Glückler

Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich | LMU · Department of Geography

In this article, we argue that learning across fields depends on the social construction of (in)commensurability rather than on the ‘distance’ between bodies of knowledge. Building on Fleck’s (1935) original concept of thought collectives, we examine how two professions, engineers and industrial designers, often fail yet sometimes succeed to make t...

Social network analysis has become a popular methodology in human geography. This article develops three propositions – connectivity, contextuality, and reflexivity – for relational analysis to overcome the dualism between universalist network science on the one hand and idiosyncratic network stories on the other. Building on a detailed meta-analys...

We take an institutional perspective to examine how innovation thrives under conditions of resistance. Specifically, we conceive illicit innovation as a process of successive institutionalization of a new practice in the face of contrary law. In the German federal state of Bavaria, the global movement of craft-beer brewing collides with a regional...

Although the positive impact of higher education on regional economies is widely recognized, empirical assessment of the magnitude of its periodic financial impact remains a puzzle. Conventional impact studies have focused on the regional effects of periodic university spending, neglecting the core functions of higher education institutions. To ove...

The continued emphasis on innovation in urban and clustered settings has led many geographers to conceive peripheries as laggard and non-innovative. After reconstructing discussions of the periphery in the context of the geography of firm-level innovation, we argue that normative connotations should be stripped away, and that 'periphery' and 'cente...

In this paper, we analyze the global controversy surrounding the innovation of cryptocurrencies, developing an analytical framework to assess the empirical structure of arguments. By unpacking an argumentation analysis of a comprehensive set of scholarly, media, and industry publications, we identify six key dimensions of disagreement, comprising 4...

While realist approaches towards judicial decision-making have become predomi-nant, their appropriateness is much less obvious for specialized or technical fieldsof law, such as patent litigation, and evidence is much scarcer than for generalistcourts. Addressing this scarcity, the paper assesses judge-level variation in deci-sion outcomes based on...

Development happens as a society undergoes structural transformation. Structural change in a society’s culture, institutions, and technologies is driven by new ways of thinking, new knowledge, and innovations. Although the latest wave of technological change, often referred to as the fifth Kondratieff cycle (Schumpeter, 1961), has been transforming...

By introducing Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries (TURF), the Chilean government has devolved authority over the appropriation of benthic fisheries to local fishers' organisations. Yet there is little evidence of how this local governance works for membership organisations. Drawing on the theory of lateral network governance, the role of legitima...

The bioeconomy comprises a range of industries that are related through their reliance on biomass and their use of biotechnology, such as agriculture, food processing, and parts of the life sciences. While the bioeconomy has received increasing attention in the context of innovation policy, the internal structure of its underlying technological fie...

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) will be the pillar of a unified European patent enforcement system. Crucial to its success will be the harmonization of geographical variation in national jurisdictions. Germany offers a unique opportunity to explore such harmonization, as plaintiffs can choose between twelve regional courts to file a patent suit, res...

The 18th volume of the interdisciplinary series on Knowledge and Space looks at how people learn, create and transfer knowledge within and across social groups, such as professions, scholarly disciplines or communities. On the one hand, creating knowledge across social groups is important for innovation, especially for creating more radical and unc...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments enforced epidemic policies of social distancing, restrictions of professional practice, and the prohibition of cultural live performances. Because such policies dried up important sources of income in the cultural and tourism industries, this paper examines how cultural institutions coped with this cri...

This article analyzes the structure of socially embedded exchange under uncertainty in the context of a community currency system in Germany. We discuss three relational and path-dependent mechanisms—experience-based trust, networked reputation and public reputation—which serve as navigation practices to mitigate uncertainty. We furthermore associa...

We focus on the relationship between the network structure of Chilean rural drinking water associations (APRs) and effective governance outcomes regarding the provision of infrastructure and drinking water to peripheral rural communities in the Valparaiso region. Based on a comparative regional multi-method case study, we assess the coherence of di...

We study a local innovation of natural resource governance in Chile in times of extreme water scarcity. Through the issuance of a scarcity decree, the government obliges local water user associations (WUAs) to reach viable water redistribution agreements in order to avoid being overruled by the state. In the Aconcagua River, the government together...

Industrial and geographical dynamics are interrelated. This chapter focuses on how scholars in the field of economic geography analyse the spatial dynamics of industrial change. Whereas traditional approaches have analysed industrial change through static and cyclical frameworks, contemporary theory endorses the evolutionary and institutional natur...

Because Brexit has implied a surge of relocation decisions by financial service firms during a short period of time, we examine the locational decisions of the financial industry in Europe. Adopting a relational perspective we analyze the association between similar relocation decisions of UK-based banks and the connectivity of their decision board...

This editorial offers a comprehensive introduction to the economic geographies of Brexit. It reviews the state of research on the multiple causes and consequences of the 2016 UK referendum and highlights the role of geographical context in the way that these factors interact in affecting voting behaviour and economic impact. Departing from an appra...

Die Mannheimer Philharmoniker leisten einen wichtigen Beitrag zum kulturellen Angebot der Stadt Mannheim, zur musikalischen Bildung von Kindern und Jugendlichen und zur Förderung exzellenten Nachwuchses von Orchestermusiker:innen. Über die Erfüllung ihrer Kultur- und Bildungsfunktion hinaus erhöht die Arbeit des Orchesters auch die wirtschaftliche...

This article examines the impact of uncertainty and profound political, economic, and regulatory changes on the process of geographic reorganization of the financial industry in the course of Brexit. It draws on historic lessons of massive relocations within the financial industry in Europe to conjecture three scenarios: (1) concentrated relocation...

To be cited as: Glückler, Johannes, Shearmur, Richard and Martinus, Kirsten (2022): From Liability to Opportunity: Reconceptualizing the Role of Periphery in Innovation. SPACES online, Vol.17, Issue 2022-01. Toronto and Heidelberg: www.spacesonline.com Abstract: The concept of periphery has remained implicit and ambiguous in economic geography, of...

Drawing on the neo-institutional notion of organizational fields, we propose the concept of the philanthropic field to conceptualize the geography of giving and the interrelations of benevolent activities across the domains of private, public, and civic sectors. Empirically, we adopt a multi-method approach, including a media analysis of reported a...

This interdisciplinary volume addresses the relations between civil society and knowledge from a social, institutional, and spatial perspective. As knowledge and civil society are co-constitutive (any voluntary civic agency would seem to require a minimum of knowledge and the kinds of civic agency shape the production and use of knowledge), we appr...

Time banks have become a popular type of civic organization constructed to facilitate egalitarian economic exchange through a community-bounded currency. Especially after the recent economic crises in Europe, the rise in the number of time banks has been accompanied by relative transience and sometimes short lifespans. We adopt a relational perspec...

This open access book focuses on the role of civil society in the creation, dissemination, and interpretation of knowledge in geographical contexts. It offers original, interdisciplinary and counterintuitive perspectives on civil society. The book includes reflections on civil and uncivil society, the role of civil society as a change agent, and on...

Family firms represent the backbone of regional economies in Europe. Yet, due to demographic and societal changes, family firm succession increasingly poses a challenge to both firm continuity and regional stability, which is why policymakers look for appropriate ways to support family firms in their succession processes. In pursuit of policies tha...

Customers increasingly prefer the provision of comprehensive solutions over buying goods and services separately. Whereas researchers have closely studied the servitization of large manufacturers, the situation of small and medium sized firms as well as of services firms has been neglected. In contrast to the one-sided view of servitization, we pro...

Governance is both a contested concept and an increasingly empirical concern. On the one hand, it has become an almost universal and all-encompassing concept, which has attracted scholarly interest from many disciplines and over many decades to tackle the dilemmas of collective action and to facilitate effective coordination of interests and resour...

This open access book focuses on theoretical and empirical intersections between governance, knowledge and space from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributions elucidate how knowledge is a prerequisite as well as a driver of governance efficacy, and conversely, how governance affects the creation and use of knowledge and innovation in geo...

The author of this article goes beyond acknowledging networks as a governance mode to elaborate on the actual forms of governance that convey legitimate and acceptable coordination. He advances the concept of lateral network governance in the empirical context of organized networks, in which organizations pool resources and join their interests in...

We examine decision-making, shared authority, and pluralism as key characteristics for the effective co-management of natural resources. Drawing on the concept of network governance, we complement this approach by studying localized practices of governance that support existing and compensate for missing aspects in the regulation. The regime of ter...

Pandemien bringen großes Leid, sie schaffen aber auch Chancen für den gesellschaftlichen Wandel. In diesem Beitrag gehe ich der Frage nach, wie disruptiv die Corona-Pandemie für das Netzwerk der Ökonomie ist, woraus dieses Netzwerk besteht und welche Veränderungen vor uns liegen.

Recent research has called for institutional approaches to help surpass the limitations of structural growth models in accounting for regionally specific development paths. The region of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg is one such puzzling case for its economic and industrial structure is inconsistent with extant models, and yet the region...

The study of networks has been characterized by a dualism of methods. Researchers either use interpretive methods to explore the quality of social relations, or quantitative methods to assess the formal structure of network connectivity. However, because relational and structural characteristics of networks are interdependent, we present a method f...

Finding a successor has become a severe challenge for family firms in Germany. As family firms are disproportionately concentrated in rural economies, succession has also become a considerable threat for peripheral regions and their labor markets. It therefore lies in the interest of regional stakeholders to help support family business continuity....

A key problem of downscaling or transferring policies across regions is embedding these policies into a place for them to unleash the full potential of regional economies. This paper elaborates on the analytical framework of “institutional context” to bridge the gap between rich theorizations and poor empirical capture of institutions in studies of...

This article explores the effects of organizational flux on the statics of interpersonal knowledge exchange structures. In our empirical case, organizational flux refers to high rates of personnel turnover, temporary project work, constant recombination of team memberships, and short-term collaboration. Network statics refers to the balance between...

Este artículo va más allá del reconocimiento de las redes como un modo de gobernanza para elaborar sobre las formas reales de gobernanza que transmiten una coordinación legítima y aceptable. Avanza el concepto de gobernanza lateral de redes en el contexto empírico de las redes organizadas, en el que las empresas ponen en común sus recursos y unen s...

La gobernanza es a la vez un concepto controvertido y una creciente preocupación empírica relacionada con una miríada de desafíos sociales contemporáneos y dilemas de acción colectiva. El propósito de este número especial es invitar a una conversación sobre nuevos conceptos de gober-nanza y su relación con las redes y el territorio en los estudios...

Wie gelingt der Übergang nach Abschluss des Studiums in den Beruf? In welchem Zusammenhang stehen Studium und berufliche Entwicklung? Wie erfolgreich sind die beruflichen Karrieren der Heidelberger Geographen1? Die vorliegende Studie sucht mithilfe einer bisher einmaligen Befragung2 aller noch erreichbaren 714 Heidelberger Geogra- phieabsolventen d...

Die Diskussion um das Clubsterben hat auch Heidelberg erreicht. Zuletzt mussten langjährig etablierte Clubs in der Stadt schließen. Dabei schaffen Musikclubs gemeinsam mit Kinos, Bühnen, Messen, Partys und Festivals etc. das kulturelle Angebot, das die Attraktivität und Lebenswürdigkeit einer Stadt ausmacht. Eine vielfältige Nachtkultur fungiert da...

Die neun Landesuniversitäten nehmen unter den 80 baden-württembergischen Hochschulen eine herausragende Position ein. Etwa die Hälfte der fast 360.000 Studierenden des Landes war dort im Jahr 2018 immatrikuliert, wobei der Anteil der ausländischen Studierenden mit 58 Prozent noch größer ausfällt. Darüber hinaus warben diese neun Universitäten allei...

Alternative economic practices (AEPs) challenge capitalism and have flourished in Spain since 2008, when the economic, social, and political crisis severely hit the country. Cities are the principal places in which these practices are developing because unemployment, poverty, and foreclosures quickly rose in urban areas between 2008 and 2015. After...

En este capítulo proponemos una perspectiva relacional y unos métodos de análisis de redes sociales para estudiar las prácticas económicas alternativas (PEA). Utilizamos el análisis dinámico de redes sociales para demostrar su valor para entender los procesos relacionales, y para ejemplificar su aplicabilidad en el caso empírico de un banco de tiem...

In diesem Artikel stellen wir die Ergebnisse einer Studie zur Szene der Musikclubs in der Stadt Heidelberg vor. Auf Basis von Interviews und einer umfassenden Bürgerumfrage analysieren wir Angebot und Nachfrage der Clubs in der Stadt. Wir entwickeln eine Typologie von Musikspielstätten nach Größe und musikalischer Prägung und diskutieren relevante...

Ein Netz oder Netzwerk besteht aus einer Menge von Knoten, die durch eine bestimmte Zahl von Kanten verbunden sind. In der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung richtet sich das Erkenntnisinteresse zumeist auf soziale Netzwerke, in denen einzelne Personen oder Organisationen untereinander in Beziehung stehen (Wasserman und Faust 1994). Jenseits dieser...

This book systematically explains classical and new theories of economic geography and invites critical appraisal of their empirical applicability. Starting from the spatial disparities and inequalities in economic processes, the authors develop a relational economic geography that meets the challenges of a globalized world economy by integrating i...

The rise of global competition in a knowledge society and budget cuts in public spending have spurred an interest in the effects of universities on their regional economies. In contrast to the legacy of local impact analysis, this study examines the economic impact of an entire university landscape on a large regional economy: the federal state of...

This chapter explores the dynamic nature of institutions in response to changes in regulations and the institutional context. Seeking to refine the understanding of how and to which extent institutions change or sustain, the authors dismantle two institutions by analyzing the dynamics of their form and function separately. They propose a simple tax...

The relationship between geography and the creation, use, and reproduction of knowledge has been at the core of this book series. The previous twelve volumes have focused, among other topics, on the role that creativity, culture, power, networks, science and universities have in cultivating an understanding of how the social process of knowing unfo...

This book can be downloaded free-of-charge using the following link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-75328-7 This open access book bridges the disciplinary boundaries within the social sciences to explore the role of social institutions in shaping geographical contexts, and in creating new knowledge. It includes theorizations as...

This chapter aims to overcome the relative silence in the dialogue between technology-oriented innovation studies and service innovation research. Rather than viewing services as just an additional factor of innovation activities, it is argued that its inclusion requires a revised understanding of the concept of innovation itself. This chapter revi...

This chapter explores the interrelations between institutions, defined as stabilized interaction patterns, and innovation, since successful innovation rests on the design of institutional contexts and since inconsistent institutional contexts constrain or even impede successful innovation. Such situations require processes of adjusting innovations...

This chapter discusses the nature of relational research designs that aim to overcome separations between different disciplinary perspectives within economic geography and create linkages to other academic fields. The relational approach is a comprehensive research perspective grounded in three principles of relationality of economic action: contex...

The book series on Knowledge & Space explores the nature of human knowledge from a geographical perspective. How to create, share, and adopt new knowledge is a core question in the social sciences. Processes of learning and knowledge creation are the result of social practice and always take place in space and in specific geographical contexts. The...

Imitation is a key learning mechanism for inventions. What are the conditions that favor learning by imitation? A perspective of social networks focuses on the effect of connectivity on knowledge outcomes. A geographical perspective focuses on the spatial dimension of social relations and the role that physical contiguity plays in knowledge creatio...

Die Theorien und Methoden der Netzwerkforschung werden in vielen Forschungsbereichen und wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen angewendet. Selbst innerhalb der Disziplinen divergiert dabei, was unter dem Oberbegriff Netzwerkforschung betrieben wird. Dennoch bildet ihre Vielfalt an Konzepten, Ideen und theoretischen Zugangsweisen einen erfreulich integrier...

Die Theorien und Methoden der Netzwerkforschung werden in vielen Forschungsbereichen und wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen angewendet. Selbst innerhalb der Disziplinen divergiert dabei, was unter dem Oberbegriff Netzwerkforschung betrieben wird. Dennoch bildet ihre Vielfalt an Konzepten, Ideen und theoretischen Zugangsweisen einen erfreulich integrier...

This book discusses a core question in many fields of the social sciences, namely how to create, share and adopt new knowledge. It creates an original space for conversation between two lines of research that have developed largely in parallel for a long time: social network theory and the geography of knowledge. This book considers that relational...

This paper develops a research agenda toward the systematic inclusion of institutions into the analysis of regional policy effectiveness. Departing from the commonly shared observation that formal rules of regulation and policies not always lead to the intended outcomes, we argue that institutions are crucial mediators of the workings of regulation...

This article takes a geographical interest in the upgrading of countries by adopting a micro-perspective of firms and inter-firm networks. We propose the concept of relational upgrading as complementary to the traditional upgrading of activities such as products, processes or functions. Based on a core–periphery model, we argue that countries may r...

Although social network analysis has gained popularity in economic geography over the last decade, most of these applications focused on analyzing the characteristics of and opportunities for single actors or regions within networks. Yet, many contemporary research challenges in economic geography center on questions regarding structural dynamics a...

Das wirtschaftliche Wachstum der Region Heilbronn-Franken war in den letzten 15 Jahren im Bundesvergleich überdurchschnittlich. Die regionale Wirtschaftsstruktur ist durch kleine und mittelständische Betriebe mit einer hohen Exportorientierung und leistungsfähigen Branchenclustern geprägt. Heilbronn-Franken prosperiert sowohl hinsichtlich der ausge...

During the advent of digital technology, the market for stock photography has undergone radical transformations that have disrupted incumbent businesses and produced new divisions of labor. Picture agencies have responded to this challenge with a veritable proliferation of inter-firm alliances. In the attempt to understand this network boom, this p...

Digital technologies have enabled the geographical expansion of production and the distribution of creative goods and communication. Simultaneously, the number of trade fairs and congresses has increased. This rise of temporary encounters has led to theorizations of events as marketplaces, learning sites and field-configuring practices. This articl...

At a regional scale, a variety of actors from all three sectors of private, public and civil society act together in a philanthropic field. This article deals with the question of how cooperation in charitable action unfolds in this field. Using the example of the region of Heilbronn-Franconia, the empirical case unpacks the dominance of local and...

The increasing global extension of the division of creative labour challenges remote firms to develop the market intelligence necessary to satisfy demand preferences of spatially distant customers. We distinguish four socio-material situations of learning where each situation implies a specific combination of three basic social communication techno...

The ongoing regional economic change from industry to services employment has long been framed from the perspective of the three-sector model established by Clark, Fisher and Fourastié. While the repeatedly found regularity between service employment and economic growth seems in favour of the model, this paper demonstrates its conceptual and empiri...

Zusammenfassung Die Bewertung der wirtschaftlichen Bedeutung von Universitäten steht zunehmend im politischen Interesse, wenn es um die Rechtfertigung des öffentlichen Mitteleinsatzes für Forschung und Bildung geht. Während regionale Wirkungsanalysen bisher meist auf der lokalen Ebene und für einzelne Einrichtungen durchgeführt wurden, bewertet die...

How can a firm increase its competitiveness? We would like to answer this question from a relational perspective that understands innovation as the result of collective effort and thus suggests the concept of the organised network. We argue that the purposeful development of organised networks enhances the individual entrepreneurial achievement and...

The increasing global extension of the division of creative labour challenges remote firms to develop the market intelligence necessary to satisfy demand preferences of spatially distant customers. We distinguish four socio-material situations of learning where each situation implies a specific combination of three basic social communication techno...

The ongoing regional economic change from industry to services employment has long been framed from the perspective of the three-sector model established by Clark, Fisher and Fourastie. While the repeatedly found regularity between service employment and economic growth seems in favour of the model, this paper demonstrates its conceptual and empiri...

Philanthropy is playing an increasingly important role in social and economic development at the level of regions. While philanthropy research has been focusing primarily on the sectorial analysis of specific types of actors such as individual generosity, patronage, foundations, service clubs or corporate philanthropy etc., this paper takes an expl...

This article integrates arguments from the perspectives of the economics of information and of the economy of qualities to analyze the spatial consequences of digital technology and information overload on two exemplary product markets: quality wine and stock photography. It demonstrates how digital technology enhances information overload in produ...

This article builds elements of a theory of peripheral innovation in transnational corporations. Although subsidiaries at the geographical periphery of the global economy and at the organizational periphery of their headquarters often contribute a negligible amount to the corporate global revenues, this article provides evidence on the role of thes...

This paper develops a rigorous concept of institutions to investigate the interrelationships between institutional and economic change from the perspective of economic geography. We view institutions neither as behavioural regularities nor as organizations or rules, but conceive institutions as stabilizations of mutual expectations and correlated i...

This chapter contributes to the understanding of the adoption of controversial innovations in the context of organizational change. In situations of controversy, organizational change is likely to be resisted. The authors argue that the management-induced diffusion of new conventions and behaviors related to communication and cooperation in an orga...

Wie kann die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit von Unternehmen gestärkt werden? Wir möchten diese Frage aus einer relationalen Perspektive beantworten, die Innovationen als Ergebnis sozialer Konstruktion begreift, und schlagen das Konzept des organisierten Unternehmensnetzwerks vor. Wir argumentieren, dass der gezielte Aufbau organisierter Unternehmensnetzwerke...

Diese Untersuchung konzentriert sich auf das Ziel, die Bedeutung der Landesuniversitäten für Wirtschaft und Arbeitsmarkt im Land Baden-Württemberg zu bewerten, und zwar lediglich bezogen auf die kurzfristigen Wirkungen der Konsumnachfrage der Universitäten und ihrer Angehörigen. Diese können im Gegensatz zu den langfristigen Wirkungen universitärer...

Gluckler J. Knowledge, networks and space: connectivity and the problem of non-interactive learning, Regional Studies. This paper develops an integrative perspective of network theory and economic geography to attain a more inclusive understanding of the creation and reproduction of knowledge. A sympathetic review of network research in the social...

Una perspectiva evolutiva de la geografía económica requiere una comprensión dinámica del cambio en las redes. Este artículo explora las teorías de la evolución de las redes para su uso en la geografía y desarrolla el marco conceptual de las trayectorias de las redes geográficas. Se evalúa específicamente cómo la selección de relaciones constituye...

This study investigates the knowledge flows among and between project managers and PMO members in a pharmaceutical R&D company in China, using a mixed-methods approach. The results show that knowledge exchange happens in clusters, where each cluster forms around a PMO member. Contrary to expectations, PMO members were not identified as the most pop...

This introductory chapter revisits the crucial role of knowledge and innovation in the process of economic development. It challenges some of the persistent puzzles in traditional economic thought about knowledge and prepares the scene for an inclusive and multidisciplinary dialogue about the concept, creation and reproduction of knowledge. Is econ...

This chapter conceptualizes knowledge management within a trade-off between organizational coherence and geographical expansion. It focuses on an extensive corporate case study of a globally distributed medium-sized technology service company in order to explore the relational architecture of interpersonal knowledge transfer among all employees and...

Dieser Beitrag stellt das Netzwerkzeug der situativen organisatorischen Netzwerkanalyse SONA vor. Neben dem vielfach erprobten quantitativen Instrument der sozialen Netzwerkanalyse integriert dieses Verfahren auch qualitative Methoden der Inhaltsanalyse. Der Methodenmix dient dem Ziel situative Netzwerkmanagementkonzepte zu entwickeln, die im Zuge...

The heterogeneity of activities within the service economy still seems to be little understood. Service typologies are affluent yet incomplete and often partial in their focus. As a consequence, interregional comparisons and the development of evidence-based regional policies are rather difficult. In this chapter we improve an integrative typology...

This explorative article develops a relational typology of PMOs based on their roles with stakeholders. A multi-case study was used to identify the roles of PMOs in multiple-PMO settings. A three-dimensional role space allows locating the complex relational profiles that PMOs take on with respect to their stakeholders in practice. Superordinate, su...

The broad spectrum of topics surrounding what is termed the ‘knowledge economy’ has attracted increasing attention from the scientific community in recent years. The nature of knowledge-intensive industries, the spatiality of knowledge, the role of proximity and distance in generating functional knowledge, the transfer of knowledge via networks, an...

In 2012, the GSIM Research Group at Heidelberg University carried out the first ever global survey on over 2,400 stock image suppliers on a truly worldwide basis. With a response rate of over ten per cent, the survey covers detailed information on 250 image suppliers that commercially trade usage rights on pre-produced still (photography, illustrat...