Emergence of a Knowledge Economy: Social Dynamics of Morphogenesis

• In Event: 3541 - The Economic Sociology of Knowledge and Expertise

Abstract

Specialized knowledge and knowhow underlie the division of knowledge for the technology sectors of advanced economies, yet we know surprisingly little about the emergence and structural properties of how such knowledge is organized. I address this challenging task with a longitudinal study of face-to-face meetings and email exchanges among a large online-and-offline tech startup community. I trace the emergence of New York City’s regional knowledge economy from an undifferentiated group of technology entrepreneurs and professionals in 2005 to a differentiated regional knowledge economy by 2015. These new sources of data enable us to see with greater clarity the network morphology of the division of knowledge in a high technology economy, as it undergoes both an increasing specialization among actors already in the system and also an influx of new people with different knowledge and interests. I then examine overlapping networks of membership in specialized meetup groups to measure and analyze the network morphogenesis.

Author

• Victor Nee, Cornell University