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

Figure 33: Cambridge and Swansea VAT registrations per 10,000 resident adults 1980-2005
70
60
50
VAT
registrations
per 10,000
resident
adults
40
30
20
10
0
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
Years
Cambridge Great Britain Swansea
the KIBS sectors and is particularly strong in
R&D and ‘computing and related services’,
whereas Swansea underperforms in all detailed
sectors, and is particularly weak in R&D and
advertising.
Interestingly, despite its image as a place of
‘blue-sky’ scientific research, the importance of
commercialisation of ideas is stressed by most
Cambridge firms.
“At the end of the day, it’s bringing ideas to
the market that counts. Companies don’t
make money just doing ‘blue-sky’ research.
It’s having ideas that can be turned into
profitable products that matters. That’s why
we work closely with customer firms and
manufacturers. They know we can develop
and apply advanced and cutting edge
technology to make a product idea into a
marketable product. That’s where, for us
anyway, the technological challenge comes
from. That’s what our people are trained to
do.” [Interview CAMB003]
In such firms, managerial and marketing
expertise is vital, since the general view is
that scientists are not always very good at
commercialising their ideas.
Although the data does not suggest that
Swansea is strong in KIBS, respondents say that
local legal and accounting services are of a high
standard. For example, a large firm of lawyers
located near the Technium buildings specialises
in technology expertise, which can serve its
companies. Successful commercialisation
also depends on identifying markets for new
products and services. There are examples
of companies in Swansea that have a global
outlook on markets, and have commercialised
their products accordingly:
“We could not have started this company
if we couldn’t have aspired for it to be a
global company right from the beginning,
because the critical mass in the UK alone
was never going to be enough to support
the several millions that were spent in
development.” [Interview SW002]
New path creation
As we saw in Part 1, technologicalindustrial
evolution can be of two main
kinds: path dependent evolution along a
given technological-industrial trajectory;
and the creation of new paths and new
trajectories. New path creation is most readily
identified with the introduction of radical
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