Title: Innovative cities: in search of their disruptive characteristics

Authors: Carlos Scheel; Angel Rivera

Addresses: EGADE Business School, Av. E. Garza Laguera y Rufino Tamayo, Valle Oriente, Garza García, N.L., C.P. 66269, Mexico ' EGADE Business School, Av. E. Garza Laguera y Rufino Tamayo, Valle Oriente, Garza García, N.L., C.P. 66269, Mexico; SEPI-UPIICSA-IPN, Av. TE # 950, Colonia Granjas Mexico, Delegación Iztacalco, C.P. 08400, Mexico D.F., Mexico

Abstract: Industrialised countries are aware that innovation is the key to growth and increasing competitiveness in modern economies, and governments are constantly seeking for it to increase their world-class positioning. Thus, innovation has been a key factor for the development of these countries and several institutions have elaborated descriptive metrics and indicators to provide a comparative assessment of the performance of cities, regions and even nations. However, these general indicators do not include the triggering conditions nor the actions that certain cities have developed to break with traditional growth paradigms and have achieved a disruptive behaviour. The main purpose of this study is to identify and describe cities' inflection points, where they made great transformations and transitions in terms of world-class performances. The more the cities use the enabling drivers in a systemic and holistic manner, the more benefits they will have, reflected in their performance metrics.

Keywords: innovative cities; breakthrough innovations; regional development; holistic development; innovation metrics; disruptive performances; disruption; disruptive characteristics; industrialised countries; economic growth; competitiveness; modern economies; world-class positioning; descriptive metrics; descriptive indicators; comparative assessments; city performance; regions; nations; triggering conditions; growth paradigms; disruptive behaviour; inflection points; transformations; transitions; enabling drivers; performance metrics; Austin; United States; USA; Auckland; New Zealand; Bangalore; India; Barcelona; Spain; Curitiba; Brazil; Medellin; Colombia; Metz; France; Stavanger; Norway; knowledge-based development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKBD.2013.052496

International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 2013 Vol.4 No.1, pp.79 - 101

Received: 08 Dec 2011
Accepted: 14 Sep 2012

Published online: 31 Mar 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article