International knowledge sourcing and innovation in the Danish wind power industry: an example of multi-locational innovation processes

Many innovation studies focus on innovation as an outcome measured by patents or innovation statistics and tend to neglect the notion that innovation processes are contingent and unfold over time. This simplistic view of innovation reduces the role of geography to a matter of statistical measures of causalities that frequently seems to favour local over international ties. However, this paper examines how local and non-local knowledge sourcing vary throughout the innovation process and seeks to clarify whether the innovation process can be understood as multi-locational. The paper applies a biographical approach that focuses on the innovation process as it unfolds over time and through space from idea generation through problem solving to implementation. The study finds that patterns of knowledge interactions vary throughout innovation processes, that the core level of innovative activities frequently changes its physical location and that the locality of the firm seems to play a larger role early in the innovation process rather than at later stages.