Content uploaded by Antti Ainamo
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Antti Ainamo on Mar 10, 2021
Content may be subject to copyright.
ARTICLE
The four faces of creative industries: visualising the game
industry ecosystem in Helsinki and Tokyo
Miikka J. Lehtonen
a
, Antti Ainamo
b,c,d
and J.Tuomas Harviainen
d,e
a
Strategic Design Management, Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation, Dubai, UAE;
b
Department of
Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology TalTech School of Business and Governance,
Tallinn, Estonia;
c
Department of Management Studies, Aalto University School of Business, Helsinki, Finland;
d
Department of Design, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki, Finland;
e
Faculty
of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
ABSTRACT
Research on creative industries has been gaining momentum dur-
ing the last few decades with contributions coming from diverse
fields. This said, there is a paucity of studies to specify how and why
companies in the game industry cluster. In this paper, we inquire
into how individuals visualise perceptions of their game industry
ecosystem in Helsinki, Finland, and Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo is one of
the oldest game industry hotspots, whereas Helsinki has entered
the picture only during the 21
st
century. Utilising drawings and their
analysis and interpretation as our research method, in this paper we
highlight the contested nature of ecosystems as arenas for colla-
boration and coopetition, shedding light on the diversity of ways
individuals conceptualise an ecosystem. Our analysis yields four
faces of ecosystems that help in understanding perceptions of
clustering in the creative industries.
KEYWORDS
Cluster; creative industries;
ecosystem; game industry;
visual methods
1. Introduction
Research on creative and cultural industries has been gaining momentum during the 21
st
century (Berg and Hassink 2014;Caves2000;Dalpiaz,Rindova,andRavasi2016;Drake2003;
Hesmondhalgh 2002;HesmondhalghandPratt2005;Lazzeretti,Capone,andInnocenti
2017;Lazzeretti,Innocenti,andCapone2017;Peltoniemi2015;Pratt2008), and contribu-
tions have come from a diverse set of research domains such as marketing (Addis and
Holbrook 2010), organisation and management studies (Cohendet, Grandadam, and Simon
2010;Cohendetetal.2018), economic geography (Foster, Manning, and Terkla 2015;
Komorowski 2017;MaskellandLorenzen2004;PowerandHallencreutz2002), and sociology
(Hirsch 1972;JonesandThornton2005). More specifically, questions focusing on why firms
in the creative industries agglomerate have attracted scholarly attention, and we now know
that clustering has an impact on reviving urban spaces (He and Gebhardt 2014), creative and
artistic practices (Ballico 2017), and innovative capabilities. Especially within the game
industry clustering warrants further inquiriesgiventhatduetothedigitaldistributionof
CONTACT Miikka J. Lehtonen miikka.lehtonen@didi.ae Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation, Dubai Design
District, Building 4, Dubai, UAE
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2019.1676704
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
games, companies no longer need to be close to their customers to ensure adequate service
experience. If this is the case, why are we then witnessing the emergence of game industry
hubs in cities across the world?
This article contributes to this nascent body of knowledge by looking at industry
dynamics at a city level. More specifically, we are looking at ecosystem
1
drawings as
sense-making constructs that show how individuals working in or with the game
industry cognitively describe their ecosystem dynamics, and as such this study extends
the current body of knowledge on clustering in the creative industries (Balland, De Vaan,
and Boschma 2013; Berg and Hassink 2014; Branzanti 2015; Cohendet et al. 2018;
Comunian, Chapain, and Clifton 2010) by highlighting these agglomerations as sites
not only for coopetition and collaboration, but also for future-making and competition.
Research on game industry has focused on creative processes (Kultima and Sandovar
2016; Sapsed and Tschang 2014; Tschang 2007), competition (Schilling 2003), open
innovation practices (Corona, Geum, and Lee 2017; Nucciarelli et al. 2017; Parmentier
and Mangematin 2014), production practices and employee treatment (O’Donnell 2009,
2014; Vesa et al. 2016; Young 2018) and industry dynamics and restrictions (Aoyama and
Izushi 2003; Banks and Cunningham 2016; De Vaan, Boschma, and Frenken 2013;
Hanzawa and Yamamoto 2017; Storz, Riboldazzi, and John 2015). Our aim here is to
contribute to the latter by looking at the game industry at a city level. To this end, this
paper looks at two cities –Helsinki, Finland, and Tokyo, Japan –from the company
perspective, by asking the following research question:
How do individuals embedded in a local ecosystem make sense out of it, and what does
this tell us about the perceptions of and connections within the ecosystem?
Our purpose here is to contribute to studies looking at creative industries from the
clustering perspective (Grodach et al. 2014; Lin 2017,2018). Research has shown that
drawings have the potential to make the subconscious tangible (Bryans and Mavin 2006),
explore identities and identity work (Butler et al. 2014), as well as stimulate interview
settings (Comi, Bischof, and Eppler 2014), but to the best of our knowledge, and apart
from the literature on network pictures (Henneberg, Mouzas, and Naudé 2006;
Henneberg, Naudé, and Mouzas 2010), drawings have not been extensively utilised
when investigating various organisational forms and phenomena. At the same time,
however, a recent study (Boix, Hervás-Oliver, and De Miguel-Molina 2015) on clustering
in the creative industries highlighted the importance of studying clustering by drawing
on novel research methods, and as such, one of the aims of this paper is to illustrate how
visual methods can increase our body of knowledge on creative industries.
Although we are looking at the game industry, we believe our study contributes to
other cultural and creative industries as well, in that the more digitalised an industry
becomes, the less important it is to be physically close to the customers. Instead, what
becomes increasingly relevant is focus on local resources and knowledge how to utilise
them: what kind of resources do companies have, what can they acquire from external
partners, what can they offer to others, and how they transmute existing ones and create
new ones (e.g. Malmberg and Maskell 2002; Porter 1998). What is more, building on
1
Whereas clusters are often understood as coordinated and non-random agglomerations of firms with complementary or
similar capabilities (e.g. Maskell and Lorenzen 2004; Porter 1998), literature on ecosystems has highlighted intention-
ality, future-making, and agency (e.g. Lewin 1999; Peltoniemi 2006; Stam 2015).
2M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
studies on visual research methodologies, we argue that drawings are well suited for
opening up concepts and ideas usually taken for granted in the research context since
they enable us to access diverse ways of knowing (Ewenstein and Whyte 2007; Feeney,
Hogan, and Donnelly 2015; Höllerer et al. 2018; Ramírez and Mannervik 2016).
The rest of the paper is structured in the following way: first, we will turn to discuss
ecosystems and industry clusters, after which we will briefly describe the dynamics of the
game industry. Building on this, we will cover the methodology devised for this study,
followed by findings and discussion. The paper is concluded by summarising our
contributions as well as offering avenues for further inquiries and implications for
practitioners and policy-making.
2. Creative ecosystems and clusters: current views
Below, we will cover literature on clusters and ecosystems to further illustrate their
conceptual differences and similarities. Building on this, studies investigating these
phenomena specifically in creative and game industry are discussed in order to explicate
on the contributions of this study.
Clusters and ecosystems as explaining why firms and other actors agglomerate
Literature on connections between firms have conceptualised these relationships as clusters
(Bathelt, Malmberg, and Maskell 2004;Lazzeretti,Boix,andCapone2008;Maskelland
Lorenzen 2004;MenzelandFornahl2010), constellations (Normann 2001), networks
(Håkansson and Snehota 1989;RamírezandMannervik2016;Walker,Kogut,andShan
1997), ecosystems and systems (Adner and Kapoor 2010;Moore1996;Stam2015;Yun,
Cooke, and Park 2017), or communities (Hirsch 1972). Despite the multitude of different,
usually overlapping, definitions of firm agglomerations what they do have in common is their
quest to analyse and theorise why firms decide to be located close to similar actors.
Studies in firm agglomerations have argued that there are several reasons why firms tend
to form such clusters. Several scholars have emphasised the open innovation paradigm
(Chesbrough 2010; Enkel, Gassmann, and Chesbrough 2009; Rohrbeck, Hölzle, and
Gemünden 2009; West and Lakhani 2008), whereas others (Meyer, Mudambi, and Narula
2011;Schotteretal.2017) have claimed especially multinational organisations to establish
subsidiaries or research centres in local clusters in order to generate knowledge for the
parent firm’s global network or simply because costs related to clustering are much more
optimal than dispersing activities. Chesbrough (2006,2010) has argued that this also serves
as a catalyst for firms to re-evaluate how their value chains are structured and how do they
position themselves in various networks or ecosystems. Moreover, from a knowledge
perspective, it has been found that physical proximity can contribute to new knowledge
being created based on the proximity of different actors (Nonaka, Toyama, and Konno 2000;
Porter 1998;Tallmanetal.2004). Physical proximity with a firm’sclients or suppliers, for
example, can enable and promote cross-pollination (Bathelt, Malmberg, and Maskell 2004;
Porter 1998).
Ecosystem as a metaphor for describing firm networks (Adner and Kapoor 2010;
Basole 2009; Iansiti and Levien 2004; Mars, Bronstein, and Lusch 2012; Mele et al. 2018;
Peltoniemi 2006) has been recently gaining currency. Drawing on studies looking at
ecosystems in biology (Costanza et al. 1997), management scholars have borrowed many
of these elements: firms and their products as species (Iansiti and Levien 2004); firm
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 3
networks as ‘complex adaptive systems’(Basole 2009; Lewin 1999); firm networks as
evolving systems (Moore 1996); and interdependence of different actors (Peltoniemi
2006; Stam 2015). Building on this stream of research, business ecosystems can be
categorised into three different groups: firm-centric (Basole 2009), product or service-
driven (Ceccagnoli et al. 2012), and location-specific (Aage and Belussi 2008; Cohendet,
Grandadam, and Simon 2010; Drake 2003). Furthermore, Iansiti and Levien (2004, 74)
describe additional three approaches for categorising actors in ecosystems: niche players,
keystones, and dominators. The two categorisations above are not mutually exclusive,
but more often than not co-evolving as we analytically move between global and local
ecosystems.
Thus, studies on firm agglomerations have vastly increased our understanding of why
firms flock together, but, as Cohendet, Grandadam, and Simon (2010) and Lazzeretti,
Boix, and Capone (2008) have pointed out, firms operating in the creative industries do
not seem to fit these frameworks as the basis for value creation lies not in scientific
knowledge, but mainly on the production of aesthetic and cultural signs and symbols
(Lash and Urry 1994; Makkonen 2014; Ballico 2017). That is to say, physical proximity
with the customers or competitors, for example, does not fully capture the myriad
reasons why firms and actors in the creative industries come together (Protogerou,
Kontolaimou, and Caloghirou 2016).
The importance of spatiality in the creative industry: inspiration and information
exchange
Firms operating in the creative industries differ in various aspects with regards to
more ‘traditional’industries (Higgs and Cunningham 2008; Peltoniemi 2015). Due to the
fuzzy and vague nature of creative or cultural industries (Hesmondhalgh 2002;
Peltoniemi 2015), there has been a lot of discussion on the conceptual borders of the
term. One of the seminal and most cited works in this discussion has been the DCMS
(2001) classification, although it has also been criticised as being overtly excluding in this
definition on what is considered as a creative industry and what is not (Banks et al. 2000).
Within this context, the importance of locality and spatiality has received a lot of
attention (Cohendet, Grandadam, and Simon 2010; Drake 2003; Lazzeretti, Boix, and
Capone 2008; Rekers 2016; Virta and Lowe 2017), and not without a reason: as the
outputs in the creative industry are based on individuals’creative talents and skills
(Hirsch 1972), such creative talents and skills often relate to the spatio-temporal spaces
in terms of their manifestation (Godart 2015; Lee 2015). To further illustrate this: Shigeru
Miyamoto, one of the most influential contemporary game designers, has been said to
have been inspired by the Japanese nature when he created The Legend of Zelda
videogame series (deWinter 2015). While this example is of anecdotal nature, many
academic inquiries on spaces and their meanings in the creative industry have also hinted
at similar findings (Brandellero and Pfeffer 2015; Drake 2003), which is precisely why
more systematic inquiries are required.
As Cohendet, Grandadam, and Simon (2010, 93) explain, ‘a“fertile soil”for a creative
city is thus a soil where the mechanisms, tools and devices that are needed to reveal,
enhance, nurture, interpret and enact creative ideas are situated within the local milieu’,
and further elaborated by Grandadam, Cohendet, and Simon (2013), thus encouraging us
to explore further how clusters are formed in the creative industries and what kind of
connections there are between actors. In a similar vein, studies focusing on Japan
4M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
(Aoyama and Izushi 2003; Hanzawa and Yamamoto 2017) have found that linkages
between platform developers and game developers in the video-game industry there have
helped in facilitating information exchange and thus generating competitive advantages
in comparison to their international competitors. Complementing the above by
approaching clustering in the video-game industry from an industry life cycle perspec-
tive, Balland, De Vaan, and Boschma (2013, 761) have found that between 1987 and 2007
geographical proximity increased in importance as the industry matured, and ‘local buzz’
(Storper and Venables 2004) was mentioned as one potential explanation.
Clustering in creative industries: building on what we know
To conclude, we now know that not only firms but also individuals tend to form localised
clusters and communities (Aage and Belussi 2008;Lazzeretti,Boix,andCapone2008).
Spatiality is one of the crucial elements behind creativity (Comunian, Chapain, and Clifton
2010;Drake2003), and the degree of institutionalisation in creative cities varies between what
Cohendet, Grandadam, and Simon (2010)refertoas‘upperground’and ‘underground’.
However, while extant literature has greatly advanced our understanding of clustering in the
creative industry of video games, in particular, there are two issues that require more scholarly
attention and this study aims at exploring those: first, most studies on clustering have focused
on either North America or Japan (see, e.g. Jørgensen, Sandqvist, and Sotamaa 2017),
and second, clustering has mostly been explored from the perspective of directly interdepen-
dent firms (e.g. strategic partnerships or developer –publisher relationship).
3. Research context
Although the first computer games were developed already during the 1940s, it was only
in the 1970s that the industry started to become commercially successful (Herman 2017;
Kerr 2017). As the market for video games grew, new actors mostly from the United
States entered the market and introduced their own video game console for consumers.
With a rapidly growing number of firms releasing their console, and games being
compatible with only one system, the market was soon saturated with games and game
consoles of varying quality, and eventually, the market crashed in the early 1980s. Instead
of withering away, the video game industry experienced a second renaissance –to a large
extent –because of Nintendo, a Japanese toy manufacturer, having released its game
console Nintendo Entertainment System in the US in 1983. From there, the industry has
been steadily growing at an increasingly rapid pace (Newzoo 2018).
What makes the game industry worth our attention is twofold: first, as mentioned
earlier in this manuscript, it is the largest form of entertainment, and second, it has been
one of the pioneers in distributing content digitally. Prior to digital distribution, value
chain in the game industry was dominated by retailers, publishers, and distributors; it has
been estimated that traditionally game developers (the firms developing the content)
received approximately 30% of the revenues. However, the introduction of Apple’s
iPhone and App Store in 2008 dramatically changed the prevailing business model by
diminishing the middlemen’s role between the developer and the consumers, thus increas-
ing the developer’s share of the revenues from 30 to approximately 70%. This shift has not
been unproblematic, as there is a sort of paradox at play here on the one hand, it is easier
than ever to release a game to global audiences, but at the same time hundreds if not even
thousands of games are released on a monthly basis (Pocket Gamer 2017). Because of the
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 5
elimination of gatekeepers (Hirsch 1972), game development companies have been pushed
to acquire new skills ranging from marketing and management to user acquisition and
community management or else face the danger of going out of business.
3.1. Tokyo: one of the earliest game industry hotspots
Historically speaking, the game industry has been shaped to a large extent by the United
States and Japan since they have been the largest markets for video games and at the same
time majority of the most influential game development companies and console manufac-
turers have come from these countries (Aoyama and Izushi 2003;IzushiandAoyama2006).
Especially in Japan, its capital city Tokyohasbeenhometonumerousgameindustry
companies (e.g. Sony, Square Enix, Konami, and GREE), and for many game developers –
both Japanese and foreign –working for these companies is seen as a sort of sign of prestige.
But the game industry in Tokyo consists of more than just traditional and multinational
game development powerhouses. With the proliferation of digital distribution, it is now
easier for small game development companies or even solo developers (doujin or indepen-
dent developers [Hichibe and Tanaka 2016]) to release their own titles to the market. This,
in turn, has exponentially increased the number of smaller game studios in the Tokyo game
industry scene as well as made it more complex. Despite this, due to historical developments
and the networked nature of established Japanese video game companies and platform
providers (Aoyama and Izushi 2003;HanzawaandYamamoto2017), small game develop-
ment studios have not been able to move upwards from what Cohendet, Grandadam, and
Simon (2010)refertoasthe‘underground’sediment of the industry as their access to
external funding or capital has been traditionally extremely scarce. What is more, due to
linguistic and aesthetic barriers, most smallgamedevelopmentstudiosinJapanhaveonly
focused on the domestic market, whereas inmoreopeneconomiessuchasFinlandand
Sweden even relatively small game development studios (consisting of two to five people)
have exponentially increased their revenues through catering for global audiences as well as
increased their opportunities to grow and expand with the help of foreign venture capital.
3.2. Helsinki: an emergent game industry cluster
Helsinki, Finland’scapital city, on the other hand, is a relative newcomer in the global
game industry setting (Cohendet et al. 2018; Jørgensen, Sandqvist, and Sotamaa 2017).
The origins of the game industry in Finland can be traced to Nokia’s heydays in the
1990s. Quite ironically, although Nokia produced numerous globally popular mobile and
smartphones, one of their commercial flops –mobile phone called N-Gage (released in
2003) that focused on gaming –turned out to be a tremendous boost for the Finnish
game industry. Since Nokia did not have the required resources and capabilities to
produce games in-house, they instead opted for using local developers to develop titles
for N-Gage. For example, Rovio Entertainment (company behind the globally successful
Angry Birds franchise) was established in 2003 as Relude to develop games for mobile
phones. Angry Birds’financial success in 2009 not only benefited Rovio itself, but it also
attracted the attention of foreign venture capital, and ever since numerous Helsinki-
based game development companies have either been acquired by foreign competitors or
received considerable investments from venture capital firms outside Finland.
6M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
Most of these companies, in turn, had one of their key roots in the demo scene that
emerged in Helsinki during the late 1980s and early 1990s as hobbyists started to
experiment what they could do with computers (Saarikoski and Suominen 2009). One
of the most famous demo groups was called Future Crew, and many of its original cast are
still active in the game industry (Jørgensen, Sandqvist, and Sotamaa 2017). Because of the
shared root of having worked together in the demo scene, many of the founders, CEOs
and other key figures in the local scene still retain connections that go far beyond
company lines, and transcend boundaries that would in other countries be restricted
by non-disclosure agreements (Heimo et al. 2018). According to a report describing the
game industry in Finland, there were over 250 game companies in Finland in 2016, and
almost 40% of those were located in the Helsinki capital region (Neogames 2017).
Because of their tight connections and shared roots, the Finnish game companies exist
in almost a textbook case example of coopetition, co-operating and competing on the
market at the same time (as per Bengtsson and Kock 2000). Their workers furthermore
regularly party together (Branzanti 2015), tightening the bond and feel of a shared
community that has arisen from their superiors’shared past (Heimo et al. 2018).
Furthermore, companies do not concentrate their connections around one offering, as
a typical value constellation would (as per Normann 2001), but are more akin to a loose
affiliation of actors, each of which has a value constellation of its own. As will be shown
later on, however, the individual network connections will still vary.
4. Methodology
Data for this study were collected in Helsinki, Finland, and Tokyo, Japan, during
2012–2014 as part of a larger research project titled Fluid business models in creative
and cultural ecosystems. The main objective of this study was to understand how
individuals working in the game industry or in organisations dealing with the game
industry would visualise, and thus perceive, their ecosystem through the means of
drawing. Previous studies (e.g. Davison, McLean, and Warren 2015; Feeney, Hogan,
and Donnelly 2015; Henneberg, Mouzas, and Naudé 2006; Meyer 1991; Meyer et al.
2013) have shed light on the analytical and methodological potential drawings have as
a source of data, and Vince (1995), for instance, has pointed out that drawings and visual
expression in general can stimulate the respondent’s emotional and unconscious dimen-
sions. In a similar vein, Bryans and Mavin (2006) also utilised drawings as means to invite
their respondents to ‘talk’about research and researchers, while Lugosi (2017) drew on
photo-elicitation to explore hospitality as an abstract concept. According to Bryans and
Mavin (2006, 14), thinking through drawings can serve as a catalyst for reflecting on the
given activity, and this was also evident in our research. While Bryans and Mavin (2006)
designed their study so that the respondents were first asked to draw and then elaborate
on their drawing through talk, we decided to reverse the order to give more primacy to
the drawing to see how ecosystem as an abstraction connects to our respondents’own
experiences (Lugosi 2017). Moreover, Venkatraman and Nelson (2008) argue for the
benefits of conducting visual research by drawing on recent advances on neurological
research; that is to say, justification for their photo-elicitation study is grounded on the
assumption that visual methods can probe deeper into the subconscious than interviews
(Zaltman 2003), and in a similar vein the ecosystem drawings covered in this study
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 7
enabled the respondents to probe their subconsciousness. Drawings furthermore assist in
separate research projects later on, by highlighting the connections, but not explicating
on the expected value of those connections per se –which in the case of a larger company
can vary from one employee position to the next significantly (e.g. O’Donnell 2014). The
drawings, while subjective, are therefore in fact more value neutral than a combination of
drawing and interview would be (Samuels 1993).
As mentioned above, the starting point for this study was to focus on understanding
the concept of ‘ecosystem’and how individuals visualise it from their perspective as
means to evoke beyond-words meanings and experiences related to their immediate
surroundings (Powell 2012). To this end, we asked our respondents the following
question:
‘Could you draw the game industry ecosystem in Tokyo/Helsinki from your
perspective?’
The task was done after an interview, except in cases 2, 4, 6, and 13 (see Table 1)in
which the respondent only completed the drawing task. The drawing task was not
mentioned at any point beforehand, as we initially thought it might put offsome of the
respondents or make them feel awkward about their drawing skills (Arnheim 1972a,
1972b). However, to our surprise, no one turned down the drawing task (in line with
Meyer 1991), and the respondents expressed delight towards breaking away from the
‘traditional’interview format by becoming active producers of research data through
drawing (Bryans and Mavin 2006; Höllerer et al. 2018).
To further elaborate on why we decided to focus on the word ‘ecosystem’, it seems that
it has become part of the lingo, so to speak, in the contemporary digital business, one that
recognises wider sets and types of actors than, e.g. ‘cluster’or ‘network’. When used in
connection to smartphones and applications the structures are somewhat unproblematic
to visualise or comprehend, but when used to illustrate companies working within the
same industry with no explicit transactional relationship to each other (e.g. supplier,
contractor, client, etc.) matters become somewhat complex. However, our aim was not to
uncover the ‘real’definition of an ecosystem, but instead to explore what kind of –if
any –novel insights drawings could bring to the table.
Initial informants were contacted through our personal networks, but the consecutive
ones were acquired through snowball sampling (Biernacki and Waldorf 1981) by asking
our respondents who we should interview next or by attending game industry events in
Helsinki and Tokyo. By striking a balance between these two approaches we wanted to
reduce bias from the snowball sampling method whilst at the same time tracing connec-
tions between actors in both cities. In line with the sampling method, we concluded the
data collection phase when the respondents no longer seemed to mention or draw new
actors or connections between them.
We provided the informant with a pen and a piece of paper onto which they could draw
their depiction of the ecosystem. If they had any clarifying questions related to the task we
would answer, but otherwise, we wanted the respondent to explore and interpret the task in
their own way. Usually, the drawings and the interviews were conducted in the intervie-
wees’office or somewhere where they felt comfortable (e.g. a café, a bar, or outdoors), and
during the drawing task, we would not leave the location but remained on the spot.
Table 1 describes our respondents, the type of organisation they represent and their
position, as well as their location and the date when the drawing was made.
8M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
As the table illustrates, we did not focus only on game developers or companies, but to
various actors who explicitly mention that they are connected to the game industry. Thus,
the only requirement we had for screening our participants was that they themselves had
to mention that they are working in the game industry or with organisations from the
game industry.
The drawings were scanned afterwards and uploaded into a cloud folder so that we all
could easily access the drawings, as we have been mostly geographically dispersed while
writing this paper. The first author collected the data while the second author was also
a participant in the broader research project, and the third author played the role of
devil’s advocate by approaching the data from an insider-outsider perspective as they
have also studied the game industry previously.
4.1. Analysing the drawings
When looking at drawings of ecosystems, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006,59) provide us
with means to analyse them as dynamic illustrations or narratives: ‘narrative patterns
serve to present unfolding actions and events, processes of change, transitory spatial
arrangements’. Consider Figure 1, for instance: lines and arrows transform a seemingly
static image into a dynamic system. What is more, the different technologies in the top
Table 1. Respondents for this study.
Respondent # Location Type of organisation Position in the organisation Time drawing was made
1 Tokyo Game developer Business department 22 October 2013
2 Tokyo Public organisation Associate professor 1 November 2013
3 Tokyo Subcontractor General manager 22 October 2013
4 Tokyo Consumer electronics company Customer insight specialist 29 October 2013
5 Tokyo Game developer Project manager 22 October 2013
6 Tokyo Game developer Entrepreneur 21 November 2013
7 Tokyo Game developer Founder 17 October 2013
8 Tokyo Game developer Founder 22 October 2013
9 Tokyo Freelance Freelance 14 October 2013
10 Tokyo Game developer Entrepreneur 9 November 2013
11 Tokyo Game developer Country director 5 October 2013
12 Helsinki Public organisation Academic faculty 4 December 2013
13 Helsinki Public organisation Technology adviser 5 December 2013
14 Helsinki Public organisation Senior adviser 3 December 2013
15 Helsinki Game developer Co-founder 9 August 2013
16 Helsinki Game developer CEO, founder 28 August 2013
17 Helsinki Game developer CEO 26 November 2012
18 Helsinki Newspaper Journalist 10 December 2012
19 Helsinki Interest organisation Chair 28 August 2013
20 Helsinki Consultancy Freelance consultant 30 January 2013
21 Helsinki Game developer Creative director 29 January 2013
22 Helsinki Freelancer Freelancer 9 January 2013
23 Helsinki Interest organisation Chair 4 December 2012
24 Helsinki Game developer Creative director 4 December 2012
25 Helsinki Game developer Co-founder 23 May 2013
26 Helsinki Game developer Marketing director 12 June 2013
27 Helsinki Public organisation Programme director 13 June 2013
28 Helsinki Game developer CEO 7 August 2013
29 Helsinki Game developer CMO 28 November 2012
30 Helsinki Game developer COO 18 October 2012
31 Helsinki Game developer CFO 19 December 2013
32 Helsinki Game developer Marketing 10 December 2013
33 Helsinki Law firm Lawyer 31 January 2014
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 9
part of the illustration (‘PC’,‘Game console’) seem to suggest that technologies also shape
the ecosystem (Orlikowski 2010; Orlikowski and Scott 2008), and this is something that
recent studies on game industry networks and ecosystems seem to have not taken into
account (Cohendet, Grandadam, and Simon 2010; Grandadam, Cohendet, and Simon
2013; Lazzeretti, Boix, and Capone 2008). What is more, most of the actors are connected
with simple lines, whereas Level 5 and Konami (both game development companies) are
connected to several other actors with one-directional arrows. This leads us to suggest
that according to this illustration, the ecosystem is mostly static, but Level 5 and Konami
are seen as moving to a certain direction.
Building on this, we decided to approach the drawings through three sequential steps
that, we hope, will in the future serve as a starting point for analysing similar visual data
(Vince and Broussine 1996). The figure illustrates our research process (Figure 2).
First, we studied the drawings one by one by focusing on crystallising our analysis of
each drawing. We looked for commonalities in what kind of tactics were used in
visualising the ecosystem. In fact, this approach turned out to be much more fruitful as
we felt we were giving ‘voice’to each drawing instead of trying to see them as represent-
ing certain categories (Davison et al. 2012; Samuels 1993). What is more, although prior
research (Bryans and Mavin 2006; Butler et al. 2014; Comi, Bischof, and Eppler 2014;
Vince and Broussine 1996) seems to suggest drawings and visuals in general can serve as
triggers for further elaboration through talk, here we are treating the drawings as their
authors’way of making sense of their local professional context (Ibarra and Andrews
1993; Meyer 1991; Stigliani and Ravasi 2012).
Figure 1. Drawn by a customer insight specialist in Tokyo, Japan (Respondent 4).
10 M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
Second, we analysed the drawings separately by categorising them based on the open-
closed and centre-periphery axes to build on studies on similar constructs (Henneberg,
Mouzas, and Naudé 2006;Henneberg,Naudé,andMouzas2010). The table below (Table 2)
illustrates how the drawings were distributed to these categories.
This initial stage of our analysis illustrated the contested nature of ecosystems and
similar constructs (Adner and Kapoor 2010;Basole2009)inasensethatasconceptsthey
are always onthe move and their analysisor cognitive sense-making depends onfrom what
perspective they are being portrayed. Furthermore, while we seem to take for granted the
fluidity of such concepts as organisation and ecosystem, most research methods tend to pin
down rather than open up meaning (Steyaert, Marti, and Michels 2012), which is why
visual research methods are well suited for investigating phenomena in motion.
Finally, based on the analysis process described above, we were able to identify four
archetypes of ecosystems that will hopefully create actionable insights for further studies,
1) Elements
emerging from
the data
•Spatio-
temporality
•Power
•Movement
2) Categorising the
drawings
1. Open – nexus
2. Closed – nexus
3. Closed – no nexus
4. Open – no nexus
3) Four faces of ecosystems
1. Actor-centric
2. Actor-driven
3. System-driven
4. System-centric
Figure 2. Sequential data analysis process devised for this study.
Table 2. Drawings categorised along the two axes.
Category Drawings (number refers to the respondent)
(1) Open –nexus 5, 11, 17, 18, 21, 23, 25, 27
(2) Closed –nexus 6, 9, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26, 29, 30, 32
(3) Closed –no nexus 2, 7, 8, 28, 31
(4) Open –no nexus 1, 3, 4, 10, 12, 13, 14, 33
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 11
managerial implications, and policy making. Below, we will present and discuss our
findings from the perspective of these four archetypes.
5. Findings
Our visual investigation into how individuals perceive their game industry ecosystem
identified four faces of ecosystems: actor-centric, actor-driven, system-driven, and sys-
tem-centric. These faces should not be understood as mutually exclusive or separate
entities, but for clarity’s sake, we shall describe them separately below.
5.1. Actor-centric drawings
The first face portrays ecosystems that are characterised by spatiotemporally situating one
actor in the centre. Research on creative industries and clusters (Comunian, Chapain, and
Clifton 2010; He and Gebhardt 2014; Peltoniemi 2015) has predominantly focused on the
physical conditions here and now, but our data reveal that temporality is also of importance
especially in terms of connecting with the past legacy as well as envisioning where the
ecosystem could be heading in the future (Heimo et al. 2018). Figure 3 illustrates temporal
connections to the ecosystem’s past. Here, the drawing revolves around the respondent’s
organisation –a game development company –but worth noting is the connecting arrow to
‘Sulake’in the top left corner. As the cross above ‘Sulake’shows, this organisation does not
exist anymore, yet the drawing nonetheless highlights its importance in the ecosystem.
Temporality can also be visualised through other symbolic means. Figure 4 shows an
elderly gentleman in the top left corner. Alone, it would not reveal much, but in relation
to the two other figures, the barbarian and the bird, it becomes apparent that this gentleman
(‘Remedy’) has been part of the ecosystem much longer than the barbarian and the bird.
These two characters refer to Supercell (the barbarian) and Rovio (the bird); perhaps two of
the most successful Finnish game companies that were established during the 2000s.
‘Remedy’, on the other hand, was established already in 1995, and its historical role in
the Helsinki ecosystem is apparent also in the positioning of these three characters: both the
bird and the barbarian are boldly looking to the right, towards the future, while the
gentleman is guarding them, so to speak (Foster, Manning, and Terkla 2015). Thus,
stretching through time and space, actor-centric ecosystems give primacy to one actor to
which all the other entities are somehow connected. In such instances, while we can identify
a focal actor or intermediary (Foster, Manning, and Terkla 2015), at the same time it is
worth noting that these ecosystems are not actively shaped by the same actor, whereas this
is the case in the next category.
5.2. Actor-driven drawings
Drawings in the second category were characterised by (trans-)local power relations that
influenced how the focal actor could develop their ecosystem. Although the respondents were
asked to focus on their physical location, several drawings transcended their setting spatially,
thus highlighting the importance of global networks at a local level (Comunian, Chapain, and
Clifton 2010;HeandGebhardt2014;Lin2017). In Figures 5 and 6,wecanseebothdrawings
highlighting how some actors exercised power or control over others. What is worth noting
12 M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
here is that there appears a seemingly clear hierarchy present in both of these actor-driven
drawings. This subordinate –superordinate relationship (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006)
signifies and makes visible power relations in the ecosystem: it is as if the central actors in
these two drawings are seen as sort of overarching actors framing what is and is not possible.
In the latter, hierarchy is visualised through three separate layers that do not signify move-
ment between them, while in the former power relations are made tangible by utilising circles
of various sizes. Regardless, the second face of the ecosystems is characterised by an active,
focal actor that is shaping the ecosystem within a given framework. While the previous face
regarded the borders as being porous, here the ecosystem has clear borders that to a large
extent enables the focal actor to shape the system.
5.3. System-driven drawings
Whereas the previous two faces dealt with drawings dominated by one actor, in
this face primacy was given to a system. Movement and sense of direction were
Figure 3. Drawn by the CEO of a game development studio in Helsinki (Respondent 17).
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 13
visualised in these drawings, thus suggesting the ecosystems were not regarded as
static entities, but as systems with capability to develop over time. As the draw-
ings in Figure 7 illustrate, arrows are especially suited for establishing connections
as well as visualising a sense of direction. In both instances, the arrows them-
selves do not signify any specific actors, but instead, they are utilised to portray
a blueprint of the ecosystem. Primacy is not given to one actor in particular,
since the drawings emphasise the system and how it is understood to operate.
What is more, although neither of these drawings explicitly visualise or signify
geographical locations, these systems areseenasclosedentitieswhereeachactor
has a role to play. While individual arrows perform movement, collectively they
resemble an ouroborian cycle that binds all the users to an endless cycle of
various actions.
Figure 4. Ecosystem drawing of Helsinki by a journalist (Respondent 18).
14 M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
5.4. System-centric drawings
The fourth face of ecosystems, system-centric drawings, seemingly come closest to
the definition of ecosystem in its biological sense. Ecosystems falling under this
category highlighted both openness and self-sustaining capabilities. As such, these
drawings understood ecosystems as developing over time whilst being open to new
actors as well as acknowledging the possibility of some actors disappearing over
time. Both of the drawings in Figure 8 portray the ecosystem in Tokyo, but
whereas the one on the right adopts a positive stance (when combined, the
industry will be bigger in the future), the one on the left is somewhat more
critical towards some of the actors. What is more, based on the second stage of
our analysis, these drawings are also of open nature, and as such acknowledge the
possibility of external actors entering the picture. In a way, then, both of these
drawings transcend their author’s organisation by looking at the ecosystem from
Figure 5. Drawing made by a freelancer in Helsinki highlighting power hierarchies (Respondent 22).
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 15
Figure 6. CMO of a game development studio in Helsinki and their portrayal of the ecosystem
(Respondent 29).
Figure 7. Ecosystem drawings of Tokyo (Left: respondent 8, right: respondent 7).
16 M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
abird’seyeperspective,andfromthereprojectingwhatitmightmeanformy
employer.
In a similar vein, the two drawings in Figure 9 illustrate the openness character-
ising system-centric drawings. While the drawing on the left emphasises chaos and
the one on the right order, they are connected in that their borders are not closed
from actors entering and exiting the ecosystem. Although these drawings visualise
their respective ecosystems in a similar fashion, it is the level of detail that sets them
apart. The drawing on the left was drawn by a respondent working for a public
organisation, whereas the one on the right was drawn by a respondent working for
their own game development company, which explain the difference in the level of
detail portrayed in the drawing.
6. Conclusion
In this paper, we have analysed 33 drawings of local game industry clusters in Helsinki and
Tokyo, and the findings shed light on how and why individuals embedded in these clusters
Figure 8. Ecosystem drawings of Tokyo (left: respondent 1, right: respondent 3).
Figure 9. Left: Respondent (13) from a public organisation in Helsinki. Right: a game developer based
in Tokyo (10).
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 17
perceive organisations within the creative industries (Aage and Belussi 2008;Hesmondhalgh
2002;Hirsch1972;Lazzeretti,Boix,andCapone2008;Lin2014;MaskellandLorenzen2004;
Peltoniemi 2015)interactandclusterwithotheractors,andhowtheecosystemas
apractitionerconceptisacontestedoneinthatitsunderstandingappearstosignificantly
differ across actors. Insights arising from the data analysed in this paper are twofold: we have
analysed perceptions of game industry ecosystem through drawings and explored clustering
through novel research methods. First, studiesonclusteringinthevideogameindustry(e.g.
Cohendet, Grandadam, and Simon 2010;Cohendetetal.2018;Grandadam,Cohendet,and
Simon 2013;HanzawaandYamamoto2017)havegeneratedratherunified analyses, while
here our data shows that clustering is a contested phenomenon: as such, ecosystems can be
regarded as arenas for power struggles (Hirsch 1972)asactorsattempttoharnesslocal
resources and knowledge to their full extent while at the same time engaging in coopetitive
practices (Porac, Thomas, and Baden-Fuller 1989;Poracetal.1995;Stam2007). Second,
ecosystem drawings also highlight temporality; previously active actors can influence the
ecosystem today, and similarly future also shapes the here-now (Lehtonen and Harviainen
2016). As discussed in the methodology section of this paper, visual methods are especially
suited for exploring such phenomena that are difficult to verbalise and bring together past,
present, and future. Finally, the four faces of ecosystems –or clusters –provide a typology for
exploring creative industry hubs outside the obvious and already established ones. As
Cohendet et al. (2018)haveargued,changesintheglobalvideogameindustrydynamics
and business models have given way for new hubs to emerge, which is why we need novel
analytical lenses to explore both existing and emerging hubs.
In terms of methodological considerations and limitations, these drawings, while
performing reality as visual artefacts (Steyaert, Marti, and Michels 2012), also remind
us of their power to deceive our eyes: just like maps can lie to us when they portray
a forest with a single tree symbol (Monmonier 1996), equally the drawings presented here
‘cut corners’by highlighting some aspects and actors while fading away others. However,
we do not wish to advocate cynicism with this argument; instead, this fluidity and
performativity that these drawings possess actually reveals more than if we treated
them as static representations of the reality, which is why future inquiries could better
take into account the respondents’background and how that influences what people
include in and exclude from their drawing. In a similar vein, future research could also
combine drawings and interviews to allow the respondents to talk about their drawings
instead of only relying on the researcher’s interpretation: for example, events taking place
immediately before the drawing could influence what the respondents decided to visua-
lise for this study, and such issues could be explored through interviews.
Since creative industries are inherently builtonsymbols,artefacts,andprocessesthatare
fluid and mobile (Lash and Urry 1994), it seems natural that also connections and ecosys-
tems are constantly on the move. Having said that, while fluidity is an integral part of these
drawings, above we have also covered perspectives that are somewhat more prevalent in
asensethattheystickwiththedrawingsalbeitwithadifferent intensity over time.
Furthermore, the analysis processinthisstudyhasbeenhighlysubjectivewithusgenerating
meaning in and across the drawings. As such,futureinquiriescoulddrawonmore
systematic analytical processes to allow for larger data sets to be analysed at once. This
approach could also mitigate potential biases stemming from the use of snowball methodol-
ogy, as then data collection would be less reliant on respondents’connections in the industry.
18 M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
With regards to managerial and policy-making implications, findings presented in this
paper can contribute to more customised policies and better-informed decision-making
(see Skavronska 2017 for a similar insight). When injecting public funding to creative
industries, our paper questions the one-size-fits-all approach as ecosystems and their
actors have divergent needs. A better understanding of the local scene and its actors’
needs would help policy-makers to test and develop more customised funding policies
and mechanisms, while for managers, better ecosystem awareness would enable them to
tap into resources they otherwise would not know existed. At the same time, however, if
the drawings seem to highlight one or several actors as being in a dominant position,
should public funding be geared towards these actors in the hopes of spill-over effects? In
a sense, this prioritisation was previously experienced in the case of Nokia: after Nokia’s
downfall in the 2010s, former employees went on to utilise their knowledge and expertise
to establish new companies, thus participating in developing the ecosystem. While public
funding was not injected to Nokia in order to advance its demise, policy-making could
take a more contextualised approach towards identified dominant actors. Here, ecosys-
tem drawings could reveal what stage the ecosystem currently is, and this has an influence
on whether dominant actors should be supported by public funding or not.
In terms of future research avenues, we analysed the drawings as finished artefacts, but it
would be beneficial to investigate the drawing process itself. To the best of our knowledge,
such sequential analyses have not been carried out in organisation studies, although they
would, perhaps, reveal fruitful insights on what was drawn first and why. In addition,
longitudinal studies and asking the respondents to talk about their drawings would also
yield insights that would help us in better theorising on how and why actors in the creative
industries cluster (in line with Berg 2014; Skog 2016). Also, and in line with Wu (2017),
exploring how consumption and production of cultural goods are interwoven in clusters
would most certainly yield interesting insights as most of the drawings covered in the study
at hand did not address the consumption side. Furthermore, exploring industry clusters
from the perspective of the four faces identified in this paper also holds potential for future
contributions as discovering similarities and differences in how actors in the cluster
perceive the current state can have significant repercussions for future development. At
this point, however, we hope our findings inspire further inquiries into creative industries
through the four faces we have conceptualised and discussed above.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Oscar Person and the participants of the Advances Seminar at Uppsala
University’s Department of Engineering Sciences for their helpful comments, and Tekes (grant ID
279/31/2012), Kaute foundation, and Jenny and Antti Wihuri foundation for financial support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Miikka J. Lehtonen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9578-4546
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 19
Antti Ainamo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0210-0294
J.Tuomas Harviainen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6085-5663
References
Aage, T., and F. Belussi. 2008.“From Fashion to Design: Creative Networks in Industrial
Districts.”Industry and Innovation 15 (5): 475–491. doi:10.1080/13662710802373791.
Addis, M., and M. B. Holbrook. 2010.“Consumers’Identification and Beyond: Attraction,
Reverence, and Escapism in the Evaluation of Films.”Psychology & Marketing 27 (9):
821–845. doi:10.1002/mar.v27:9.
Adner, R., and R. Kapoor. 2010.“Value Creation in Innovation Ecosystems: How the Structure of
Technological Interdependence Affects Firm Performance in New Technology Generations.”
Strategic Management Journal 31 (3): 306–333. doi:10.1002/smj.v31:3.
Aoyama, Y., and H. Izushi. 2003.“Hardware Gimmick or Cultural Innovation? Technological,
Cultural, and Social Foundations of the Japanese Video Game Industry.”Research Policy 32 (3):
423–444. doi:10.1016/S0048-7333(02)00016-1.
Arnheim, R. 1972a.Art and Visual Perception. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Arnheim, R. 1972b.Visual Thinking. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Balland, P. A., M. De Vaan, and R. Boschma. 2013.“The Dynamics of Interfirm Networks along
the Industry Life Cycle: The Case of the Global Video Game Industry, 1987–2007.”Journal of
Economic Geography 13 (5): 741–765. doi:10.1093/jeg/lbs023.
Ballico, C. 2017.“Another Typical Day in This Typical Town: Place as Inspiration for Music
Creation and Creative Expression.”Australian Geographer 48 (3): 349–363. doi:10.1080/
00049182.2016.1223518.
Banks, J., and S. Cunningham. 2016.“Creative Destruction in the Australian Videogames
Industry.”Media International Australia 160 (1): 127–139. doi:10.1177/1329878X16653488.
Banks, M., A. Lovatt, J. O’Connor, and C. Raffo. 2000.“Risk and Trust in the Cultural Industries.”
Geoforum 31 (4): 453–464. doi:10.1016/S0016-7185(00)00008-7.
Basole, R. C. 2009.“Visualization of Interfirm Relations in a Converging Mobile Ecosystem.”
Journal of Information Technology 24 (2): 144–159. doi:10.1057/jit.2008.34.
Bathelt, H., A. Malmberg, and P. Maskell. 2004.“Clusters and Knowledge: Local Buzz, Global
Pipelines and the Process of Knowledge Creation.”Progress in Human Geography 28 (1): 31–56.
doi:10.1191/0309132504ph469oa.
Bengtsson, M., and S. Kock. 2000.“”coopetition”in Business Networks —To Cooperate and
Compete Simultaneously.”Industrial Marketing Management 29: 411–426. doi:10.1016/S0019-
8501(99)00067-X.
Berg, S.-H. 2014.“Creative Cluster Evolution: The Case of the Filmand TV Industries in Seoul, South
Korea.”European Planning Studies 23 (10): 1993–2008. doi:10.1080/09654313.2014.946645.
Berg, S.-H., and R. Hassink. 2014.“Creative Industries from an Evolutionary Perspective:
A Critical Literature Review.”Geography Compass 8 (9): 653–664. doi:10.1111/gec3.v8.9.
Biernacki, P., and D. Waldorf. 1981.“Snowball Sampling –Problems and Techniques of Chain
Referral Sampling.”Sociological Methods & Research 10 (2): 141–163. doi:10.1177/
004912418101000205.
Boix, R., J. L. Hervás-Oliver, and B. De Miguel-Molina. 2015.“Micro-geographies of Creative
Industries Clusters in Europe: From Hot Spots to Assemblages.”Papers in Regional Science 94
(4): 753–772. doi:10.1111/pirs.12094.
Brandellero, A., and K. Pfeffer. 2015.“Making a Scene: Exploring the Dimensions of Place through
Dutch Popular Music, 1960–2010.”Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 47 (7):
1574–1591. doi:10.1177/0308518X15595781.
Branzanti, C. 2015.“Creative Clusters and District Economies: Towards a Taxonomy to Interpret
the Phenomenon.”European Planning Studies 23 (7): 1401–1418. doi:10.1080/
09654313.2014.935930.
20 M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
Bryans, P., and S. Mavin. 2006.“Visual Images: A Technique to Surface Conceptions of Research
and Researchers.”Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: an International
Journal 1 (2): 113–128. doi:10.1108/17465640610686370.
Butler, C., J. Finniear, A. M. Doherty, and S. Hill. 2014.“Exploring Identity: A Figurative Character
Image-elicitation Approach.”Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: an
International Journal 9 (2): 151–168. doi:10.1108/QROM-10-2012-1103.
Caves, R. E. 2000.Creative Industries: Contracts between Art and Commerce. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Ceccagnoli, M., C. Forman, P. Huang, and D. J. Wu. 2012.“Cocreation of Value in a Platform
Ecosystem: The Case of Enterprise Software.”MIS Quarterly 36 (1): 263–290. doi:10.2307/
41410417.
Chesbrough, H. 2006.Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Chesbrough, H. 2010.“Business Model Innovation: Opportunities and Barriers.”Long Range
Planning 43 (2–3): 354–363. doi:10.1016/j.lrp.2009.07.010.
Cohendet, P., D. Grandadam, C. Mehouachi, and L. Simon. 2018.“The Local, the Global and the
Industry Common: The Case of the Video Game Industry.”Journal of Economic Geography 18
(5): 1045–1068. doi:10.1093/jeg/lby040.
Cohendet, P., D. Grandadam, and L. Simon. 2010.“The Anatomy of the Creative City.”Industry
and Innovation 17 (1): 91–111. doi:10.1080/13662710903573869.
Comi, A., N. Bischof, and M. J. Eppler. 2014.“Beyond Projection: Using Collaborative
Visualization to Conduct Qualitative Interviews.”Qualitative Research in Organizations and
Management: an International Journal 9 (2): 110–133. doi:10.1108/QROM-05-2012-1074.
Comunian, R., C. Chapain, and N. Clifton. 2010.“Location, Location, Location: Exploring the
Complex Relationship between Creative Industries and Place.”Creative Industries Journal 3 (1):
5–10. doi:10.1386/cij.3.1.5_2.
Corona, M., Y. Geum, and S. Lee. 2017.“Patterns of Protecting Both Technological and
Nontechnological Innovation for Service Offerings: Case of the Video-Game Industry.”
Service Science 9 (3): 192–204. doi:10.1287/serv.2017.0174.
Costanza, R., R. d'Arge, R. de Groot, S. Farber, M. Grasso, B. Hannon, K. Limburg et al. 1997.“The
Value of The World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital.”Nature 387 (6630): 253–260.
Dalpiaz, E., V. Rindova, and D. Ravasi. 2016.“Combining Logics to Transform Organizational
Agency: Blending Industry and Art at Alessi.”Administrative Science Quarterly 61 (3): 347–392.
doi:10.1177/0001839216636103.
Davison, J., C. McLean, and S. Warren. 2012.“Exploring the Visual in Organizations and
Management.”Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International
Journal 7 (1): 5–15. doi: 10.1108/17465641211223528.
Davison, J., C. McLean, and S. Warren. 2015.“Looking Back: Ten Years of Visual Qualitative
Research.”Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: an International Journal 10
(4): 355–359. doi:10.1108/QROM-07-2015-1311.
DCMS. 2001.Creative Industries: Mapping Document. London: DCMS.
De Vaan, M., R. Boschma, and K. Frenken. 2013.“Clustering and Firm Performance in Project-
based Industries: The Case of the Global Video Game Industry, 1972–2007.”Journal of
Economic Geography 13: 965–991. doi:10.1093/jeg/lbs038.
deWinter, J. 2015.Shigeru Miyamoto ((Influential Video Game Designers)). New York, NY:
Bloomsbury.
Drake, G. 2003.“‘this Place Gives Me Space’: Place and Creativity in the Creative Industries.”
Geoforum 34 (4): 511–524. doi:10.1016/S0016-7185(03)00029-0.
Enkel, E., O. Gassmann, and H. Chesbrough. 2009.“Open R&D and Open Innovation: Exploring
the Phenomenon.”R&D Management 39 (4): 311–316. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9310.2009.00570.x.
Ewenstein, B., and J. Whyte. 2007.“Beyond Words: Aesthetic Knowledge and Knowing in
Organizations.”Organization Studies 28 (5): 689–708. doi: 10.1177/0170840607078080.
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 21
Feeney, S., J. Hogan, and P. F. Donnelly. 2015.“What Stick Figures Tell Us about Irish Politics:
Creating a Critical and Collaborative Learning Space.”Teaching in Higher Education 20 (3):
313–327. doi:10.1080/13562517.2015.1016416.
Foster, P., S. Manning, and D. Terkla. 2015.“The Rise of Hollywood East: Regional Film Offices as
Intermediaries in Film and Television Production Clusters.”Regional Studies 49 (3): 433–450.
doi:10.1080/00343404.2013.799765.
Godart, F. C. 2015.“Trend Networks: Multidimensional Proximity and the Formation of Aesthetic
Choices in the Creative Economy.”Regional Studies 49 (6): 973–984. doi:10.1080/
00343404.2012.732693.
Grandadam, D., P. Cohendet, and L. Simon. 2013.“Places, Spaces and the Dynamics of Creativity:
The Video Game Industry in Montreal.”Regional Studies 47 (10): 1701–1714. doi:10.1080/
00343404.2012.699191.
Grodach, C., E. Currid-Halkett, N. Foster, and J. Murdoch. 2014.“The Location Patterns of
Artistic Clusters: A Metro- and Neighborhood-level Analysis.”Urban Studies 51 (13):
2822–2843. doi:10.1177/0042098013516523.
Håkansson, H., and I. Snehota. 1989.“No Business Is an Island: The Network Concept of Business
Strategy.”Scandinavian Journal of Management 5 (3): 187–200. doi:10.1016/0956-5221(89)
90026-2.
Hanzawa, S., and D. Yamamoto. 2017.“Recasting the Agglomeration Benefits for Innovation in a
Hits-based Cultural Industry: Evidence from the Japanese Console Videogame Industry.”
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 99 (1): 59–78. doi:10.1080/04353684.2016.1271618.
He, J.-L., and H. Gebhardt. 2014.“Space of Creative Industries: A Case Study of Spatial
Characteristics of Creative Clusters in Shanghai.”European Planning Studies 22 (11):
2351–2368. doi:10.1080/09654313.2013.837430.
Heimo, O., J. T. Harviainen, K. K. Kimppa, and T. Mäkilä. 2018.“Virtual to Virtuous Money:
A Virtue Ethics Perspective on Video Game Business Logic.”Journal of Business Ethics 153 (1):
95–103. doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3408-z.
Henneberg, S. C., P. Naudé, and S. Mouzas. 2010.“Sense-making and Management in Business
Networks - Some Observations, Considerations, and a Research Agenda.”Industrial Marketing
Management 39 (3): 355–360. doi:10.1016/j.indmarman.2009.03.011.
Henneberg, S. C., S. Mouzas, and P. Naudé. 2006.“Network Pictures: Concepts and Representations.”
European Journal of Marketing 40 (3–4): 408–429. doi:10.1108/03090560610648129.
Herman, L. 2017.Phoenix IV: The History of the Videogame Industry. Springfield, NJ: Rolenta
Press.
Hesmondhalgh, D. 2002.The Cultural Industries. London: SAGE.
Hesmondhalgh, D., and A. C. Pratt. 2005.“Cultural Industries and Cultural Policy.”International
Journal of Cultural Policy 11 (1): 1–14. doi:10.1080/10286630500067598.
Hichibe, N., and E. Tanaka. 2016.“Content Production Fields and Doujin Game Developers in
Japan: Non-economic Rewards as Drivers of Variety in Games.”In Transnational Contexts of
Culture, Gender, Class, and Colonialism in Play, edited by A. Pulos and S. Austin Lee, 43–80.
Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Higgs, P., and S. Cunningham. 2008.“Creative Industries Mapping: Where Have We Come
from and Where are We Going?”Creative Industries Journal 1(1):7–30. doi:10.1386/
cij.1.1.7_1.
Hirsch, P. M. 1972.“Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-set Analysis of Cultural
Industry Systems.”American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 639–659. doi:10.1086/225192.
Höllerer, M. A., T. van Leeuwen, D. Jancsary, R. E. Meyer, T. H. Andersen, and E. Vaara. 2018.
Visual and Multimodal Research in Organization and Management Studies. London:
Routledge.
Iansiti, M., and R. Levien. 2004.“Strategy as Ecology.”Harvard Business Review 82 (3): 68–78.
Ibarra, H., and S. B. Andrews. 1993.“Power, Social-influence, and Sense Making –Effects of
Network Centrality and Proximity on Employee Perceptions.”Administrative Science Quarterly
38 (2): 277–303. doi:10.2307/2393414.
22 M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
Izushi, H., and Y. Aoyama. 2006.“Industry Evolution and Cross-sectoral Skill Transfers:
A Comparative Analysis of the Video Game Industry in Japan, the United States, and the
United Kingdom.”Environment and Planning A 38 (10): 1843–1861. doi:10.1068/a37205.
Jones, C., and P. H. Thornton. 2005.“Transformation in Cultural Industries.”In Transformation
in Cultural Industries, edited by C. Jones and P. H. Thornton. Research in the Sociology of
Organizations, Vol. 23, xi–xxi. Bingley: Emerald.
Jørgensen, K., U. Sandqvist, and O. Sotamaa. 2017.“From Hobbyists to Entrepreneurs: On the
Formation of the Nordic Game Industry.”Convergence 23 (5): 457–476. doi:10.1177/
1354856515617853.
Kerr, A. 2017.Global Games: Production, Circulation and Policy in the Networked Era. New York,
NY: Routledge.
Komorowski, M. 2017.“A Novel Typology of Media Clusters.”European Planning Studies 25 (8):
1334–1356. doi:10.1080/09654313.2017.1303823.
Kress, G., and T. van Leeuwen. 2006.Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London:
Routledge.
Kultima, A., and A. Sandovar. 2016.“Game Design Values.”In Proceedings of the 20th
International Academic Mindtrek Conference, Tampere, Finland, 350–357.
Lash, S., and J. Urry. 1994.Economies of Signs and Space. London: SAGE.
Lazzeretti, L., F. Capone, and N. Innocenti. 2017.“Exploring the Intellectual Structure of Creative
Economy Research and Local Economic Development: A Co-citation Analysis.”European
Planning Studies 25 (10): 1693–1713. doi:10.1080/09654313.2017.1337728.
Lazzeretti, L., N. Innocenti, and F. Capone. 2017.“The Impact of Related Variety on the Creative
Employment Growth.”The Annals of Regional Science 58 (3): 491–512. doi:10.1007/s00168-016-
0805-2.
Lazzeretti, L., R. Boix, and F. Capone. 2008.“Do Creative Industries Cluster? Mapping Creative
Local Production Systems in Italy and Spain.”Industry and Innovation 15 (5): 549–567.
doi:10.1080/13662710802374161.
Lee, M. 2015.“Fostering Connectivity: A Social Network Analysis of Entrepreneurs in Creative
Industries.”International Journal of Cultural Policy 21 (2): 139–152. doi:10.1080/
10286632.2014.891021.
Lehtonen, M. J., and J. T. Harviainen. 2016.“”mobile Games and Player Communities: Designing
for and with Clans.”Design Management Review 27 (3): 20–26. doi: 10.1111/drev.12033.
Lewin, R. 1999.Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Lin, C.-Y. 2014.“The Evolution of Taipei’s Music Industry: Cluster and Network Dynamics in the
Innovation Practices of the Music Industry.”Urban Studies 51 (2): 335–354. doi:10.1177/
0042098013489745.
Lin, C.-Y. 2017.“The Reputation-building Process and Spatial Strategies of Creative Industries:
A Case Study of Product Design Firms in Taipei.”Environment and Planning A: Economy and
Space 49 (1): 186–204. doi:10.1177/0308518X16667297.
Lin, C.-Y. 2018.“Emerging Challenges of an Urban Creative Economy: Reflections on the
Governance of Creative Clusters in Taipei City.”European Planning Studies 26 (2): 421–437.
doi:10.1080/09654313.2017.1392489.
Lugosi, P. 2017.“Using Abstract Concepts in Impact-focussed Organisational Research: An
Empirical Example Deploying ‘hospitality’.”Qualitative Research in Organizations and
Management: an International Journal 12 (1): 18–34. doi:10.1108/QROM-02-2016-1363.
Makkonen, T. 2014.“Tales from the Thousand Lakes: Placing the Creative Network of Metal
Music in Finland.”Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 46 (7): 1586–1600.
doi:10.1068/a130020p.
Malmberg, A., and P. Maskell. 2002.“The Elusive Concept of Localization Economies: Towards a
Knowledge-Based Theory of Spatial Clustering.”Environment and Planning A: Economy and
Space 34 (3): 429–449. doi:10.1068/a3457.
Mars, M. M., J. L. Bronstein, and R. F. Lusch. 2012.“The Value of a Metaphor: Organizations and
Ecosystems.”Organizational Dynamics 41 (4): 271–280. doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2012.08.002.
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 23
Maskell, P., and M. Lorenzen. 2004.“The Cluster as Market Organization.”Urban Studies 41
(5–6): 991–1009. doi:10.1080/00420980410001675878.
Mele, C., S. Nenonen, J. Pels, K. Storbacka, A. Nariswari, and V. Kaartemo. 2018.“Shaping Service
Ecosystems: Exploring the Dark Side of Agency.”Journal of Service Management 29 (4):
521–545. doi:10.1108/JOSM-02-2017-0026.
Menzel, M. P., and D. Fornahl. 2010.“Cluster Life Cycles –Dimensions and Rationales of Cluster
Evolution.”Industrial and Corporate Change 19 (1): 205–238. doi:10.1093/icc/dtp036.
Meyer, A. D. 1991.“Visual Data in Organizational Research.”Organization Science 2 (2): 218–236.
doi:10.1287/orsc.2.2.218.
Meyer, K. E., R. Mudambi, and R. Narula. 2011.“Multinational Enterprises and Local Contexts:
The Opportunities and Challenges of Multiple Embeddedness.”Journal of Management Studies
48 (2): 235–252. doi:10.1111/joms.2011.48.issue-2.
Meyer, R. E., M. A. Höllerer, D. Jancsary, and T. van Leeuwen. 2013.“The Visual Dimension in
Organizing, Organization, and Organization Research: Core Ideas, Current Developments, and
Promising Avenues.”Academy of Management Annals 7 (1): 489–555. doi:10.1080/
19416520.2013.781867.
Monmonier, M. 1996.How to Lie with Maps. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Moore, J. F. 1996.The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business.
New York, NY: Harper Business.
Neogames. 2017.“The Game Industry of Finland.”Neogames,April 18. Accessed 27 December
2017. https://www.neogames.fi/fgir2016/
Newzoo. 2018.“2018 Global Games Market Report.”Newzoo, June 20. Accessed 22 February 2018.
https://newzoo.com/insights/trend-reports/newzoo-global-games-market-report-2018-light-
version/
Nonaka, I., R. Toyama, and N. Konno. 2000.“SECI, Ba and Leadership: A Unified Model of
Dynamic Knowledge Creation.”Long Range Planning 33 (1): 5–34. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(99)
00115-6.
Normann, R. 2001.Reframing Business: When the Map Changes the Landscape. Chichester: Wiley.
Nucciarelli, A., F. Li, K. J. Fernandes, N. Goumagias, I. Cabras, S. Devlin, D. Kudenko, and
P. Cowling. 2017.“From Value Chains to Technological Platforms: The Effects of
Crowdfunding in the Digital Game Industry.”Journal of Business Research 78: 341–352.
doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.12.030.
O’Donnell, C. 2009.“The Everyday Lives of Video Game Developers: Experimentally Understanding
Underlying Systems/structures.”Transformative Works and Cultures 2 (1): 1–11.
O’Donnell, C. 2014.The Developer’s Dilemma: The Secret World of Videogame Creators.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Orlikowski, W. J. 2010.“The Sociomateriality of Organisational Life: Considering Technology in
Management Research.”Cambridge Journal of Economics 34 (1): 125–141. doi:10.1093/cje/
bep058.
Orlikowski, W. J., and S. V. Scott. 2008.“Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of
Technology, Work and Organization.”Academy of Management Annals 2: 433–474.
doi:10.1080/19416520802211644.
Parmentier, G., and V. Mangematin. 2014.“Orchestrating Innovation with User Communities in
the Creative Industries.”Technological Forecasting & Social Change 83: 40–53. doi:10.1016/j.
techfore.2013.03.007.
Peltoniemi, M. 2006.“Preliminary Theoretical Framework for the Study of Business Ecosystems.”
Emergence: Complexity & Organisation 8 (1): 10–19.
Peltoniemi, M. 2015.“Cultural Industries: Product-Market Characteristics, Management
Challenges and Industry Dynamics.”International Journal of Management Reviews 17 (1):
41–68.
Pocket Gamer. 2017.“App Store Metrics.”Pocket Gamer. Accessed 12 December 2017. http://
www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/?mpage=submission
24 M. J. LEHTONEN ET AL.
Porac, J. F., H. Thomas, and C. Baden-Fuller. 1989.“Competitive Groups as Cognitive
Communities: The Case of Scottish Knitwear Manufacturers.”Journal of Management Studies
26 (4): 397–416. doi:10.1111/joms.1989.26.issue-4.
Porac, J. F., H. Thomas, F. Wilson, D. Paton, and A. Kanfer. 1995.“Rivalry and the Industry Model
of Scottish Knitwear Producers.”Administrative Science Quarterly 40 (2): 203–227. doi:10.2307/
2393636.
Porter, M. E. 1998.“Clusters and the New Economics of Competition.”Harvard Business Review
76 (6): 77–90.
Powell, K. 2012.“Making Sense of Place: Mapping as a Multisensory Research Method.”In SAGE
Visual Methods, edited by J. Hughes, 313–338. London: SAGE.
Power, D., and D. Hallencreutz. 2002.“Profiting from Creativity? the Music Industry in
Stockholm, Sweden and Kingston, Jamaica.”Environment and Planning A: Economy and
Space 34 (10): 1833–1854. doi:10.1068/a3529.
Pratt, A. C. 2008.“Creative Cities: The Cultural Industries and the Creative Class.”Geografiska
Annaler Series B –Human Geography 90B (2): 107–117. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0467.2008.00281.x.
Protogerou, A., A. Kontolaimou, and Y. Caloghirou. 2016.“Innovation in the European Creative
Industries: A Firm-level Empirical Approach.”Industry and Innovation 24 (6): 587–612.
doi:10.1080/13662716.2016.1263551.
Ramírez, R., and U. Mannervik. 2016.Strategy for a Networked World. London: Imperial College
Press.
Rekers, J. V. 2016.“What Triggers Innovation Diffusion? Intermediary Organizations and
Geography in Cultural and Science-based Industries.”Environment and Planning C: Politics
and Space 34 (6): 1058–1075. doi:10.1177/0263774X15625226.
Rohrbeck, R., K. Hölzle, and H. G. Gemünden. 2009.“Opening up for Competitive Advantage –
How Deutsche Telekom Creates an Open Innovation Ecosystem.”R&D Management 39 (4):
420–430. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9310.2009.00568.x.
Saarikoski, P., and J. Suominen. 2009.“Computer Hobbyists and the Gaming Industry in Finland.”
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 31 (3): 22–33. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2009.39.
Samuels, A. 1993.The Political Psyche. London: Routledge.
Sapsed, J., and F. T. Tschang. 2014.“Art Is Long, Innovation Is Short: Lessons from the
Renaissance and the Digital Age.”Technological Forecasting & Social Change 83: 127–141.
doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2013.09.014.
Schilling, M. A. 2003.“Technological Leapfrogging: Lessons from the U.S. Video Game Console
Industry.”California Management Review 45 (3): 6–32. doi:10.2307/41166174.
Schotter, A. P. J., R. Mudambi, Y. L. Doz, and A. Gaur. 2017.“Boundary Spanning in Global
Organizations.”Journal of Management Studies 54 (4): 403–421. doi:10.1111/joms.12256.
Skavronska, I. V. 2017.“Creative Industries in Ukraine: Analysis and Prospects of the
Development.”Economics and Sociology 10 (2): 87–106. doi:10.14254/2071-789X.2017/10-2/7.
Skog, D. A. 2016.“Local Game, Global Rules: Exploring Technological Heterogeneity Exploitation
in Digital Creative Cluster Evolution.”Industry and Innovation 23 (6): 531–550. doi:10.1080/
13662716.2016.1185358.
Stam, E. 2007.“Why Butterflies Don‘t Leave: Locational Behavior of Entrepreneurial Firms.”
Economic Geography 83 (1): 27–50. doi:10.1111/j.1944-8287.2007.tb00332.x.
Stam, E. 2015.“Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Regional Policy: A Sympathetic Critique.”
European Planning Studies 23 (9): 1759–1769. doi:10.1080/09654313.2015.1061484.
Steyaert, C., L. Marti, and C. Michels. 2012.“Multiplicity and Reflexivity in Organizational
Research: Towards a Performative Approach to the Visual.”Qualitative Research in
Organizations and Management: an International Journal 7 (1): 34–53. doi:10.1108/
17465641211223456.
Stigliani, I., and D. Ravasi. 2012.“Organizing Thoughts and Connecting Brains: Material Practices
and the Transition from Individual to Group-level Prospective Sensemaking.”Academy of
Management Journal 55 (5): 1232–1259. doi:10.5465/amj.2010.0890.
Storper, M., and A. J. Venables. 2004.“Buzz: Face-to-face Contact and the Urban Economy.”
Journal of Economic Geography 4 (4): 351–370. doi:10.1093/jnlecg/lbh027.
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION 25
