History Matters: Path dependence and innovation in British city ...

2.2 Selection of leading and lagging
city-regions
In order to select particular cities to illustrate
the nature of path dependent development
and the respective roles of their collective
absorptive capacities and local innovation
systems in their development, we first analysed
the innovation outcomes shown in the results
of CIS4 for all 63 British cities with core
populations greater than 125,000. Figure
10 shows the introduction of novel products
between 2002 and 2004 and the wide variation
in innovation outcomes between British
cities. The highest rates of such innovation
were located mainly in Southern England
particularly around the Greater South East
(GSE). The lowest rates were disproportionately
concentrated in cities located around peripheral
coastal areas in England and Wales and also in
middle and Northern England.
In order to illustrate the historical trajectories
that have led to such results we selected a
sample of 12 cities for further more detailed
analyses using existing data sets (mainly
time series). Six were selected from the top
deciles of performers on the six different
measures of innovation outcome provided
by CIS4. A further six were selected from the
corresponding bottom deciles. Table 1 shows
the results of this selection exercise.
2.3 Path dependent development in old
and new industrial areas is diverging
From our selection of cities, we can see the
long-term nature of the pathways followed
to arrive at their positions in the early 21st
century. Thus, all the cities in the lowest
deciles except Norwich had experienced rapid
Table 1: Best and worst performing cities on CIS4 innovation measures
Innovation measure
Cities in top decile
(best first)
Cities in bottom decile
(worst first)
Percentage of firms introducing
novel products
Percentage of firms introducing
novel processes
Percentage of firms introducing
new or improved products
Percentage of firms introducing
new or improved processes
Percentage of firms
implementing major changes to
organisational structure
Percentage of firms
implementing changes
in marketing concepts or
strategies
Cambridge (35 per cent)
Aldershot (27 per cent)
Northampton (25 per cent)
Portsmouth (23 per cent)
Northampton (11 per cent)
Wakefield (11 per cent)
Cambridge (10 per cent)
Bournemouth (9 per cent)
Cambridge (45 per cent)
Northampton (42 per cent)
Aldershot (38 per cent)
Milton Keynes (38 per cent)
Oxford (32 per cent)
Northampton (29 per cent)
Southampton (27 per cent)
Bournemouth (26 per cent)
Reading (34 per cent)
Milton Keynes (31 per cent)
Portsmouth (31 per cent)
Oxford (31 per cent)
Warrington (32 per cent)
Reading (31 per cent)
Birkenhead (31 per cent)
Crawley (31 per cent)
Swansea (6 per cent)
Leeds (10 per cent)
Birkenhead (11 per cent)
Cardiff (11 per cent)
Newport (2 per cent)
Southend (3 per cent)
Mansfield (3 per cent)
Leeds (3 per cent)
Swansea (18 per cent)
Norwich (20 per cent)
Southend (22 per cent)
Cardiff (24 per cent)
Leeds (13 per cent)
Norwich (15 per cent)
Stoke (16 per cent)
Swansea (16 per cent)
Wakefield (13 per cent)
Preston (16 per cent)
Newport (16 per cent)
Southend (17 per cent)
Wakefield (13 per cent)
Middlesbrough (15 per cent)
Swansea (16 per cent)
Norwich (16 per cent)
Source: Analysis of CIS4 dataset at city level, for GB cities with a population above 125,000 and a sample size of at least 75
firms in CIS4. Cities highlighted in bold are those included in the final selection of 12 cities.
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