Entrepreneurial Growth and Labour Market Dynamics: Spatial actors in the Consideration of Relevant Skills and Firm Growth in the Creative, Knowledge-Based Industries

Studies into the spatial determinants of entrepreneurship have tended to focus on (a) the characteristics of more successful regions, knowledge spill overs and agglomerations of economic activity (Jaffe, 1993, 1998, Zucker, et al, 1998, Acs, 2002, Sorensen and Stuart, 2003, Audretsch and Feldman, 2004; regional differences in entrepreneurship capital (Sternburg & Wennekers 2005), (c) the relationship between personal entrepreneurial characteristics and behaviour and new business creation. An apparent propensity for researchers to focus on the performance outcomes of entrepreneurship at a regional level, rather than the structural supply-side conditions that may influence regional differences in rates of new venture formation, and therefore be construed as constituent components of an ?entrepreneurial culture? in those areas. This paper is concerned with the exploration of some of the critical, spatial and structural factors underpinning industry growth, entrepreneurship and labour market dynamics with particular reference to the so-called ?Creative Industries?. Our research shows a statistically significant spatial correlation between levels of human capital (amongst other framework factors) and higher rates of new firm formation in knowledge-intensive sectors in the United Kingdom. It then goes on to investigate how human capital (measured in terms of educational attainment at different levels) can be enhanced within an economically peripheral sub-region to overcome mismatches between the supply of, and demand for, what the government terms ?economically valuable? skills (Leitch Review of Skills in the UK, 2004). Not all such enhancement measures generate entrepreneurial outcomes in terms of self-employment and new business creation. Equally, the availability of flexible labour and skills can support the growth of innovative firms. It is precisely these dynamics within local production systems, coupled with the existence of an entrepreneurial capability, that force many workers to change from the status of self-employed to that of employees at various times in their lives (Cappellin, 1998).