Understanding the contemporary history of urban economic change: the case of entrepreneurial innovation

Huggins, R and Thompson, P ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1961-7441, 2024. Understanding the contemporary history of urban economic change: the case of entrepreneurial innovation. Growth and Change, 55 (1). ISSN 0017-4815

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Abstract

In the opening decades of the twenty-first century certain cities around the world emerged as hubs of entrepreneurial innovation. This paper explores this urban economic change phenomenon through in-depth and comparative qualitative analysis. It focuses on the recent contemporary history of New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Tokyo and Shanghai prior to the global COVID pandemic. Based on an analysis of the drivers, mechanisms and processes of change, it is found that these cities acted as places of possibility for many individuals who previously may have been unlikely to engage in entrepreneurship. The cities were found to have established new development paths through entrepreneurial innovation stemming from co-creation network dynamics, with key human agents playing pivotal roles. Common elements include the rise of venture capital, the growth of entrepreneurial cultures, and institutional policy changes. Notably, entrepreneurial innovation was found to be closely tied to changes in large corporates. This innovation evolved through the proliferation of new infrastructure such as co-working spaces and innovation incubators, with each city being utilised as a test-bed for new ideas. Finally, the emergence of a darker side to entrepreneurial innovation is found in terms of growing urban inequality.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Growth and Change
Creators:	Huggins, R. and Thompson, P.
Publisher:	Wiley
Date:	March 2024
Volume:	55
Number:	1
ISSN:	0017-4815
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1111/grow.12712 DOI 1860742 Other
Rights:	© 2024 the authors. Growth and Change published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	08 Feb 2024 17:09
Last Modified:	08 Feb 2024 17:09
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/50831

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