ABSTRACT
The role of labour for the spatial organization of industries already constituted a key element of the ‘general’ Weberian location theory. Allen Scott’s argument, putting it in analogy to the nomenclature used to summarize Doreen Massey’s points, is about spreading labour over time and not over space. Knowledge has of course become the crucial element for economic activity, but the nature of knowledge-intensive labour has made business more complex given that the future profit earned by a worker cannot or only to a limited extent be a priori assessed. Professional biographies of knowledge-intensive labour force of course meet both aspects of embeddedness. In addition, and importantly, uncertainty emerges through the contact with the internal professional and structural economic logic of the abstract ‘expert system’ one enters when starting a professional career. Concerning the former the training of knowledge-intensive professionals comprises much more than mere academic education, thus entailing efforts in the whole range of educational activities.
