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KIBS and innovation: The geographic dynamics of innovation in Quebec
Author(s) -
Plassart Mathilde,
Shearmur Richard
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the canadian geographer / le géographe canadien
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.35
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1541-0064
pISSN - 0008-3658
DOI - 10.1111/cag.12068
Subject(s) - metropolitan area , economic geography , neighbourhood (mathematics) , context (archaeology) , business , government (linguistics) , service (business) , spatial contextual awareness , geographical distance , census , service innovation , regional science , marketing , geography , sociology , population , mathematical analysis , linguistics , philosophy , remote sensing , mathematics , demography , archaeology
The question we address in this article concerns the possible existence of specifically geographic processes that influence the propensity of Québec City knowledge‐intensive business services (KIBS) firms to innovate. In other words, after controlling for factors of innovation that are internal to the firm, does their neighbourhood‐level environment within the Quebec census metropolitan area partly determine their propensity to innovate? More specifically, this study looks at whether proximity to certain types of economic activity —measured by their employment levels— is connected with innovation. We show that proximity effects do exist, but that these differ according to the type of innovation considered and according to the type of activity to which proximity is measured. Our results indicate that clusters including KIBS, manufacturing, and technical KIBS seem to benefit innovation. Service establishments are, however, more innovative when they are close to the centre of Quebec City, and remote from professional services and government. The nature of these results differs somewhat from those for Montreal—in particular there is no tendency for innovation to increase with the distance to the central business district (CBD). This suggests that the connection between intra‐metropolitan location and KIBS innovation is dependent on specific metropolitan context, and does not therefore reflect easily generalisable processes.