Title: Innovation in the IT sector: intermediary organisations as a knowledge sharing strategy?

Authors: Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay

Addresses: Téluq, University of Québec, Montréal, Canada

Abstract: While traditional neoclassical economics view the individual entrepreneur as source of competitiveness, and the market economy as source of economic growth, it has recently been recognised that collective leadership and entrepreneurial activity are often at least as important. Also, knowledge has replaced physical capital as the main source of competitiveness and creation of a competitive advantage over other firms through networks and knowledge sharing. However, it is often unclear how this knowledge can be gained. Some authors contest the neoclassical individualistic view and consider that networks and industrial clusters can foster such knowledge exchanges. We hypothesised that the IT sector would be interested in collective ways of accessing knowledge, and sought to determine what modes of governance or intermediaries could make this happen. The paper analyses these intermediaries and their contributions to the IT/multimedia/gaming sector in Montreal, the cluster policy which favours knowledge exchanges, the collective over the individual.

Keywords: industrial clusters; networks; knowledge sharing; innovation; information technology; IT; gaming; cooperation; intermediary organisations; multimedia; collective leadership; entrepreneurial activity; Canada; knowledge exchange.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKBD.2016.080872

International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 2016 Vol.7 No.4, pp.336 - 356

Received: 19 Aug 2016
Accepted: 19 Aug 2016
Published online: 09 Dec 2016 *

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