Paper to be presented at the DRUID Summer Conference 2007 on APPROPRIABILITY, PROXIMITY, ROUTINES AND INNOVATION Copenhagen, CBS, Denmark, June 18 - 20, 2007 TRANSIENT INTER- FIRM PROJECTS IN CREATIVE INDUSTRIES: LOCAL AND GLOBAL SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE AND SOLUTIONS Peter Maskell DRUID/CBS maskell@cbs.dk Abstract: Because knowledge is usually distributed among different individuals, its mobilization as part of innovation efforts implies a degree of collaboration. Such mobilization is usually taken to be facilitated by the pre-existence of shared cognitive models of the world. The paper extends this common wisdom by investigating the organization of knowledge creation through successful transient collaborative inter-firm "projects" in creative industries and adds to the discourse of geography of innovation by pursuing intuitions regarding the systemic nature of search for knowledge and solutions. It is based on cross-country study of project governance, innovative outcomes and the geographical reach of firms' search. JEL - codes: M21, R19, -