Everyday effects practices cultural embeddedness.pdf

Geoforum 38 (2007) 393–413

www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum

ects, practices and causal mechanisms of ‘cultural

embeddedness’: Learning from Utah’s high tech regional economy

Everyday e

Al James

Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, England, United Kingdom

Received 2 June 2006; received in revised form 30 September 2006

Abstract

In recent years, economic geographers have drawn extensively upon notions of ‘cultural embeddedness’ to explore how spatially vari-

able sets of cultural conventions, norms, values and beliefs shape

rms’ innovative performance in dynamic regional economies. However,

our understanding of these causal links remains partial, reinforced by an ‘over-territorialised’ conception of cultural embeddedness which

sidelines the role of institutional actors operating outside and across the boundaries of ‘the local’. So motivated, this paper o

ers a theo-

retically-informed – and theoretically informing – empirical analysis of the high tech regional economy in Salt Lake City, Utah to explore

the everyday causal mechanisms, practices and processes – both local and extra-local – through which

rms’ cultural embedding within

the region is manifested, performed and (un)intentionally (re)produced. In so doing, this paper aims to further our understanding of the

constitutive entanglement and complex interweaving of cultural/economic practices, and to contribute to the development of an in-depth

empirical corpus of work which compliments the exciting conceptual developments that have largely dominated cultural economic geog-

raphy over the last decade.

Keywords: Embeddedness; Innovation; Culture/economy; Region; Mechanisms; Salt Lake City

1. Introduction

ignored in conventional economic analyses but which fun-

damentally organise the workings of the space economy

( Wolfe and Gertler, 2001 ). This shift has been particularly

apparent within the post-Fordist regional learning and

innovation literature in economic geography. Here, schol-

ars have drawn extensively upon the concept of ‘cultural

embeddedness’ to explore how

Received wisdom in economic geography has long held

‘economy’ and ‘culture’ as separate spheres, each with their

own discrete set of institutions, rationalities and conditions

of existence. However, since the early 1990s, economic

geographers have increasingly rejected these economy ‘ver-

sus’ culture dualisms in favour of a range of more

rms’ production processes

operate within, and impact on, the spatially variable sets

of social conventions, norms, attitudes, values and beliefs of

the societies within which economic decisions and practices

take place. Indeed there has now emerged a strong consen-

sus that it is simply impossible to explain the continuing

advantage of some regional economies over others if

we fail to take into account the ways in which

uid and

hybrid conceptions that emphasize the mutual constitution

of these two spheres (see e.g. Castree, 2004; Crang, 1997;

Gibson-Graham, 1996; Lee and Wills, 1997; McDowell,

2000; Ray and Sayer, 1999 ). In so doing, scholars have

brought to the centre of their analyses the so-called ‘soft’

sociocultural aspects of economic behaviour previously

rms’ activ-

ities are culturally constituted ( Storper, 1997; Saxenian,

1994 ).

However, despite the widespread popularity of this con-

cept, the economic consequences of cultural embeddedness,

E-mail addresses: al.james@geog.cam.ac.uk , aj210@cam.ac.uk

0016-7185/$ - see front matter

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.10.001

394

A. James / Geoforum 38 (2007) 393–413

along with the causal mechanisms and practices through

which

innovation literature, and also identi

es some important

rms come to be culturally embedded, remain poorly

understood. The nature of this knowledge gap more

broadly has been usefully summarised by Paivi Oinas :

directions for future research.

2. Connecting ‘cultural embeddedness’ to regional economic

development

‘We need to understand the various ways in which

rms as collective actors and various individuals or

groups of them are embedded, and the ways in

which these di

Over the last two decades, in the context of the widely

documented (although by no means uncontested) shift to a

globalised post-Fordist knowledge economy, a major

research agenda within economic geography has developed

around the local determinants of entrepreneurship. Build-

ing on an earlier interest in agglomeration economies and

‘traded’ input–output linkages (e.g. Scott, 1986, 1988; Stor-

per and Walker, 1989 ), scholars have broadened their anal-

yses to examine how ‘untraded’ sociocultural, institutional

and relational characteristics of regional industrial

agglomerations foster and support conditions conducive to

knowledge creation, inventiveness, information dissemina-

tion, and learning. The regional innovation and learning

literature is now extensive (see MacKinnon et al., 2002 and

Cumbers et al., 2003 for useful recent reviews), but at the

broadest level the advantages of agglomeration are argued

to emerge from: localised information

erent embeddednesses are related to

economic outcomes, both at the level of

rms and

their spatial environmentsƒ Empirical studies are

needed, to open up the richness of “embeddedness”

in comprehensive studies ƒ to reveal the processes

through which economic action and outcomes are

ected by “embeddedness” ’

(1997, p. 30, empha-

ses added).

Taking up Oinas’s call, this paper aims to advance our

understanding of ‘cultural embeddedness’ by means of a

theoretically informed – and theoretically informing –

empirical analysis of the regional high tech industrial

agglomeration in Salt Lake City, Utah, a region widely rec-

ognized as the heartland of ‘Mormonism’, the distinctive

culture associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-

ter-day Saints (informally, the ‘Mormon Church’). Not

only does this regional case study o

ows; technological

spillovers; collective learning; and the creation of specia-

lised pools of knowledge and skill premised on formal and

informal networks of collaborative interaction between

er a particularly visible

(and hence measurable) instance of regional cultural econ-

omy, but in common with many other regions around the

world, economic development o

rms and their employees which aid the circulation of tacit

knowledge within the region ( Capello, 1999; Malmberg

and Maskell, 1997, 2002 ). Crucially, scholars have also

focused on the qualitative rules, conventions, and norms

on which actors draw to combine varied skills, competen-

cies and ideas to create new knowledge and so underpin

innovation. Innovation is therefore increasingly regarded

as a fundamentally interactive, and hence unavoidably

socio-cultural, process ( Asheim, 2001; Malecki and Oinas,

1999 ).

One of the most common approaches within this

regional learning and innovation literature has involved the

geographical application and operationalisation of the con-

cept of ‘embeddedness’ – although of course, the regional

scale is by no means the only spatial logic of embeddedness!

(see e.g. Coe et al., 2004; Hess, 2004; Lewis et al., 2002; Liu,

2000; Mol and Law, 1994 ). Embeddedness is broadly de

cials in Utah have them-

selves increasingly recognised the fundamental role of cul-

tural norms, values and conventions in shaping and

conditioning regional economic competitiveness as they

have sought to emulate Silicon Valley’s spectacular growth

dynamic over the last three decades.

The paper begins with a brief review of how di

erent

notions of cultural embeddedness have been variously

employed by economic geographers to understand uneven

patterns of regional economic development, their concep-

tual divergence from Polanyi’s (1944) and Granovetter’s

(1973, 1985) original formulations, and the ongoing limits

to our understanding (Section 2 ). This is followed by an

introduction to, and epistemic justi

cation of, the Salt Lake

case study (Section 3 ). Section 4 summarises the main ways

in which the behaviour of Utah’s high tech

rms can be

ned as the set of social relationships between economic and

non-economic actors (individuals as well as aggregate

groups of individuals, i.e. organizations), which in turn cre-

ate distinctive patterns of constraints and incentives for

economic action and behaviour (see e.g. Hess, 2004; Jessop,

2001; Zukin and DiMaggio, 1990 ). The concept was

seen as constituted through, and di

erentially shaped by,

the socially constructed norms, values and evaluative crite-

ria within Mormonism, and also measures the conse-

quences of that ‘cultural embedding’ for

rms’ abilities to

learn, innovate and compete (i.e. why cultural embedded-

ness matters). Section 5 then unpacks the multi-scaled set of

‘everyday’ practices, causal mechanisms and tangible

agents through which Mormon cultural values come to

rst

put forward by Polanyi (1944) in his book ‘ The Great

Transformation ’ which explicitly rejected the then domi-

nant view of the economy as ‘natural’, pre-given, self-regu-

lating and inevitable in form, instead arguing that markets

are socially constructed and governed. Polanyi also dis-

tinguished between three types of economic exchange in

society (reciprocal, redistributive and market) each charac-

terised by a distinct form of embeddedness in social and

rms’ systems of organisational control, rule sys-

tems, decision-making processes, and observed behaviour –

that is, it seeks to explain how cultural embeddedness is

(re)constructed over time. Finally, Section 6 explores the

wider signi

cance of this analysis in terms of its overcoming

some persistent limitations within the regional learning and

A. James / Geoforum 38 (2007) 393–413

395

cultural structures. 1 Polanyi’s ideas were later reworked

and reintroduced to social science in the mid-1980s by

Marc Granovetter in reaction to: (i) an undersocialised

view of economic action represented by neoclassical eco-

nomics which ‘assumes rational self-interested behaviour

minimally a

cited example of the ways in which embeddedness matters

in a regional context. Controlling for industrial sector,

products, historical period, business cycle position, political

events, and nation-state, Saxenian highlighted the impor-

tance of local cultural societal determinants of industrial

adaptation, their in

ected by social relations’ (1985, p. 481); and

(ii) an oversocialised view in modern sociology which con-

ceives of ‘people as obedient to the dictates of consensually

developed systems of norms and values, internalised

through socialisation, so that obedience is not perceived as

a burden’ (p. 483). 2 Taking a route through the middle,

Granovetter instead stressed the concrete and ongoing

nature of the social relations in which economic actors are

enmeshed, and outside of which it is impossible to under-

stand fully their economic activities. In so doing, Granovet-

ter shifted the analytical focus of embeddedness away from

Polanyi’s earlier focus on abstract economies and societies

onto individual people, groups, organisations and networks

of interpersonal relationships ( Emirbayer and Goodwin,

1994 ). These ideas were

rm networks of associa-

tion, and their territorial manifestations. In Silicon Valley,

uence on inter

rms’ embeddedness in a distinctive regional Californian

counter culture characterized by a willingness to embrace

risk, and loyalties to transcendent technologies over indi-

vidual

rms, underpinned a regional network-based indus-

trial system based on blurred inter

rm boundaries and

exible adjustment among producers of complex related

products. 3 In contrast,

rms’ embeddedness in a traditional

conservative East Coast business culture in Route 128 is

argued to have sustained relatively integrated corporations,

lesser interaction, and lower rates of economic growth.

Scholars have subsequently built upon Saxenian’s work to

examine further how ‘cultural embeddedness’ shapes pat-

terns of corporate behaviour, local production and employ-

ment relations, industrial adaptation and economic

development in other regions 4 (e.g. Amin and Thrift, 1994;

Malecki, 1995; Morgan, 1997; Storper, 1995, 1997 ).

However, while ‘cultural embeddedness’ has quickly

become established as a conceptual lynchpin of the regional

development literature, our understanding of the causal

mechanisms and everyday practices through which spatially

variable sets of socio-cultural conventions, norms, attitudes,

values and beliefs shape and condition

rst applied in economic geography

in the early 1990s (see Dicken and Thrift, 1992 ), and have

since given rise to an important research agenda within the

sub-discipline.

Regional economic geographical scholars have explored

a number of di

erent dimensions of embeddedness, which

can usefully be grouped together under three broad (albeit

highly overlapping) headings, as recently typologised by

Hess (2004, pp. 176–181) . First, societal embeddedness

refers to the ways in which the perceptions, strategies and

actions of economic actors are in

rms’ economic per-

uenced and shaped by

their social, cultural and political backgrounds, both at the

individual level and at the aggregate level of the

formance remains under-speci

ed. Indeed, despite its popu-

larity, even Saxenian’s (1994) study fails to outline fully the

causal links between the competitive culture described in

Silicon Valley and the success of this regional economy –

and nor does Saxenian measure those causal links ( Marku-

sen, 1999 ). Additionally, regional learning accounts have

tended to ‘dehumanise’ processes of cultural embedding,

instead misrepresenting cultural embeddedness as some-

thing ethereal and eternal, divorced from everyday material

practice, or else have misconstrued ‘it’ as a self-perpetuating

inherited tradition that determines contemporary economic

activities (see Gertler, 1997, 2004 ). Critics have also argued

that these problems are compounded by a tendency within

the regional learning literature to sideline the importance of

wider extra -local structures ( Lewis et al., 2002; MacKinnon

et al., 2002; Markusen, 1999; Oinas, 2002 ), which reinforces

a partial view of the structures and forces shaping processes

rm (e.g.

Dicken and Thrift, 1992; Harrison, 1992 ). Second, network

embeddedness describes the composition, structure and

architecture of formal and informal relationships among

erent sets of individuals and organizations that a person

or organisation is involved in, and how that in turn shapes

their economic activities (e.g. Crewe, 1996; Park, 1996 ).

Third, territorial embeddedness refers to the extent to

which economic actors are ‘anchored’ in local territorial

networks of institutions, and to how those actors are in

enced by the economic activities and social dynamics that

already exist in those places (e.g. Cooke, 2002; Markusen,

1996; Phelps et al., 1998; Scott, 1988; Tödtling, 1994;

Turok, 1993 ).

Arguably, it is Saxenian’s (1994) work on the divergent

economic trajectories of Silicon Valley and Boston’s Route

128 through the 1980s is one of (if not the most!) widely

rms’ sociocultural embedding, based on a misplaced

conception of regions as ‘closed systems’ or mere ‘containers

1 SpeciWcally, while non-market economies based on ‘ reciprocal and

redistributive exchange were constituted on the basis of shared values and

norms that had their roots in social and cultural bonds rather than mone-

tary goals, societies based on market exchange reXect only those underly-

ing values and norms that consider price’ ( Hess, 2004, p. 168 ).

2 In the undersocialised account, atomisation results from the utilitarian

pursuit of self-interest; in the oversocialised account, it results from behav-

iour patterns having been internalised such that ongoing social relations

have only a peripheral e

3 Saxenian’s (1994) account has been contested by Florida and Kenney

(1990) .

4 Arguments have therefore aligned themselves with the earlier Xexible

specialisation school accounts of successful industrial districts in North-

Eastern Italy (e.g. Becattini, 1978; Brusco, 1982; Piore and Sabel, 1984 ),

which placed heavy emphases on trust, cooperation, and artisanal produc-

tion, to develop a theory of economic co-operation, where social ties and

community relationships shape economic behaviour.

ect on the behaviour of economic actors (p. 485).

396

A. James / Geoforum 38 (2007) 393–413

of intangible assets and structures’ ( Yeung, 2005, p. 47 ). 5

Indeed, this restrictive focus on locally bounded economic

activities means that our currently ‘over-territorialised’

notions of cultural embeddedness have lost sight of Pola-

nyi’s original notions of ‘societal’ embeddedness ( Hess,

2004, p. 173 ).

In seeking to overcome these limitations, this paper

explores the everyday mechanisms, practices and emergent

Table 1

Utah and Wasatch Front populations and labourforce, 2003

Population

Labourforce

Utah State

2,378,696

1,184,385

Salt Lake City/Ogden MSA

Salt Lake County

924,826

512,293

Davis County

255,343

124,837

Weber County

205,802

109,497

Provo/Orem MSA

Utah County

ects at the local and extra-local scales through which

422,409

181,832

rms’ cultural embedding is manifest, performed and

(un)unintentionally (re)produced. 6 The paper also explores

the interactions between di

Source : US Bureau of the Census (2004), Utah Department of Workforce

Services (2004a,b) .

erent mechanisms and prac-

tices of cultural embedding and their territorial manifesta-

tions. In so doing, the paper aims to further our

understanding of the constitutive entanglement and inter-

weaving of cultural/economic practices by grounding

‘cultural embeddedness’ in people’s everyday work-life

experiences (following e.g. Dyck, 2005; Holloway and Hub-

bard, 2001; Smith, 2002 ). The next section introduces the

Salt Lake City/Mormon case study and explains how – on

the one hand – it o

Church). Mormons comprise over 75% of the state’s total

population ( LDS Church/Deseret News, 2000; Eliason,

2001 ), the same population from which Utah’s high tech

workforce is drawn. Indeed, for its entire history as a politi-

cal entity, Utah has been ‘Mormon Country’ ( Poll, 2001 , p.

164). Mormon culture is conservative by popular standards

with strong family and community impulses ( May, 2001 ). It

includes prohibitions against alcohol and drug use, a com-

mitment to fasting and prayer, modesty in dress, an empha-

sis on family and obedience to parents, and concerns for the

elderly and the poor. The church also opposes abortion,

divorce and premarital sex, whilst also emphasizing the

Protestant ethics of diligence, education and the attainment

of skills ( Cornwall, 2001 ). Three key elements of Utah’s

Mormon culture make it especially suited to this research.

First, Mormonism is more than simply a creedal faith; it is

a whole way of life requiring an almost total commitment

in customs, values, and lifestyle (see Kotkin, 1993 ). More-

over, many commentators argue that Mormon culture is so

strong that there also exists a Mormon ethnicity ( Abram-

son, 1980; May, 2001; Mitchell, 2000 ). Second, the demo-

graphic dominance of Mormons in Utah creates a

denomination-speci

ers a particularly visible case for explor-

ing these culture/economy issues, yet – on the other hand –

it is by no means a unique case.

3. Case Study: Salt Lake City (high tech meets Mormonism)

Salt Lake City is the main centre of population on

Utah’s Wasatch Front, an urban corridor of four counties

(Salt Lake, Weber, Davis and Utah) that runs north and

south between the foot of the Wasatch Mountains to the

east and Great Salt Lake to the west. High tech growth has

occurred here in three waves: a defense industry build-up in

the 1960s; growth of software and services in the 1980s

(when many Silicon Valley

rms began to move various

functions to Utah); followed by a cascade of start-ups in

the 1990s. This region is now home to over three quarters of

Utah’s total population of 2.38 million ( Table 1 ) with over

3400 high tech

c domination of Utah’s general cul-

ture 7 – indeed, over 90% of all church members in Utah are

LDS ( Young, 1996 ). Third, Mormonism’s central tenets are

easily articulated and well known, and its ideologies written

rms employing over 67,000 people across a

range of subsectors ( Utah Department of Workforce Ser-

vices, 2004a ; see also Table 2 ). ‘Computer software and sys-

tems design’ (formerly SIC 737) is Utah’s lead high tech

subsector in terms of employment and number of establish-

ments and therefore forms the focus of this analysis.

Signi

7 While I am aware of the dangers of essentialising Mormon cultural

practices and playing down the role of non-Mormon sub-cultures within

Utah, it is worth noting that the dominance of Mormon culture in Utah is

manifest in a range of secondary data at the state level. First, Utah has

been a Republican political stronghold since the 1960s, consistent with the

time when LDS Church leaders began outspokenly to favour conservative

positions on key social issues ( Burbank et al. (2001) ). Indeed, studies using

public opinion data to summarise the ideological and partisan orientations

of citizens by state have identiWed Utah as the most conservative and

Republican state in the US on average ( Erickson et al., 1993 : 14–19;

Wright et al., 2000 : 41). Second, Utah’s fertility rate is approximately one

third higher than the US national rate, a function of Utah having more ba-

bies per woman (c.f. US average) and a higher proportion of Utah’s female

population being in child-bearing years compared with females nationally

( Perlich, 1996 ). Both are consistent with Mormon family values which

encourage marriage followed by childbearing ( Cornwall, 1996; Smith and

Shipman, 1996 ). Moreover, consistent with Mormonism’s discouragement

of divorce and bearing children out of wedlock ( Smith and Shipman,

1996 ), male and female Utahns alike are more likely to be married than

individuals in the US at any age ( ibid. ).

cantly, the Wasatch Front is also the geographical

heartland of Mormonism, the distinctive culture associated

with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS

5 Arguably, this narrow approach results from a particular form of ‘clo-

sure by space’ ( Massey, 1999, p. 263 ) in which case studies are delimited

and deWned according to the same administrative boundaries within which

highly accessible contextual data is initially available (typically at the

county or Metropolitan Statistical Area level). Fundamentally, however,

we cannot assume that the key processes that shape and condition our case

studies similarly obey those same (often arbitrary) administrative bound-

aries.

6 Here I employ the language of Hudson (2005) whose work explores the

production of ‘old industrial regions’ (through the case study of North

East England).

A. James / Geoforum 38 (2007) 393–413

397

Table 2

Utah’s high tech subsectors, 2000 and 2003

NAICS

Description

Establishments

Employment

2000

2003

2000

2003

325413

In-vitro diagnostic substance manuf.

333314

Optical instrument and lens manuf.

187

154

3341

Computer and peripheral equipment manuf.

3942

1158

3342

Communications equipment manuf.

2398

2518

3344

Semiconductor and electronics manuf.

4618

2970

3345

Navigational, measuring & electromedical manuf.

3313

3813

335991

Carbon and graphite product manuf.

371

321

3364

Aerospace product and parts manuf.

7472

6302

3391

Medial equipment supplies manuf.

184

185

7430

7512

5112 & 5415

Software and computer systems design

1512

1588

19,598

16,055

51211

Motion picture and video production

185

192

3003

2322

51219

Postproduction and related activities

5172

Wireless telecommunications carriers

1459

719

5174

Satellite telecommunications

5179

Other telecommunications

5181

Internet service providers

250

246

3779

3150

54133

Engineering services

583

641

5710

5975

54138

Testing laboratories

107

1187

1208

54171

R&D in physical engineering and life sciences

227

246

3060

3722

TOT

3400

3544

67,715

57,354

Source : Utah Department of Workforce Services (2004a,b) .

down and easily accessible. Moreover, the Utahn regional

variant of Mormonism has been recognized as particularly

visible, on the basis of the unique institutional history of

this region (Salt Lake City was founded by the Mormons in

1847 and remains the worldwide administrative centre for

the LDS Church) and the physical isolation of Salt Lake

Valley itself ( Poll, 2001 ).

As such, Utah o

in a strong Christian Evangelical regional culture ( Gray

and Markusen, 1999 ). These religious cultural examples are

linked by a high degree of visibility, which in turn has

ered scholars an important means of analysing culture–

economy interactions feasibly , and hence facilitated the

development of conceptual understandings which might

then be applied to other regions with regional cultures that

are less visible (and hence amenable to study) in the

ers a very visible case study to explore

the everyday causal mechanisms and practices through

which

rst

instance. Herein, therefore, lies the wider relevance of the

Utah case to the established regional learning and innova-

tion literature.

rms’ cultural embedding within regional economies

is manifested, performed and (un)intentionally (re)pro-

duced, and hence through which we might further our

understanding of the constitutive entanglement and com-

plex interweaving of cultural/economic practices. Crucially

however, while this is a very visible case study, it is by no

means unique. Rather, there are thousands of regional

economies worldwide similarly premised on strong cohe-

sive regional cultures (be those based on gender, ethnicity,

trade unions, or particular sectoral specializations for

example) which unavoidably shape and condition local pat-

terns of entrepreneurship and regional economic develop-

ment trajectories. At the same time, some of the most

celebrated examples of regional industrial economies in the

geographical literature are themselves also based on reli-

gious regional cultures. These include Boston’s Route 128,

embedded in New England’s Protestant culture which has

been shown to sustain conservative business cultures in

local large electronics

3.1. Methodology

This research was carried out between 2000 and 2004.

Initially, an industrial survey of the leading 105 computer

software

rms by 2000 revenue (10% sample) was con-

ducted across the four counties of the Wasatch Front. 8

Firms in the survey dataset employ 7585 people in Utah,

and in 2000 generated a combined revenue of $1031 million

from their Utah operations. Signi

cantly, almost three-

quarters (69%) of the

rms in the survey sample are Mor-

mon founded; 68% have a Mormon majority management

team; and 58% are Mormon founded and managed. (Argu-

ably, these

gures represent the broadest indicator of

rms’

rms ( Saxenian, 1994 ); the ethnic

immigrant networks in Silicon Valley premised on Bud-

dhist, Hindu and Shintoist culture, which connect local

rm: (i) occupa-

tional structure and workforce composition; (ii) interWrm relationships

and external orientation; (iii)

Speci

cally, the survey focused on

ve key areas of the

rms’ in-house tech-

nological capabilities and innovative R&D processes (v) competitive ‘per-

formance’ and growth. I achieved an overall response rate of just over

50%, and as such the survey dataset covers the top 20% of software

nancing histories; (iv)

rms to dynamic growth regions in South–East Asia (e.g.

Saxenian, 1999; Saxenian et al., 2002 ); and the embedded-

ness of the military industrial complex in Colorado Springs

rms

on the Wasatch Front by 2000 revenue.

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