Towards technological rules for designing innovation networks: a dynamic capabilities view.

Inter-organizational innovation networks provide opportunities to exploit complementary resources that reside beyond the boundary of the firm. The shifting locus of innovation and value creation away from the “sole firm as innovator” poses important questions about the nature of these resources and the capabilities needed to leverage them for competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to describe research into producing design-oriented knowledge, for configuring inter-organizational networks as a means of accessing such resources for innovation

The Matter of Entrepreneurial Learning: A Literature Review

This paper is a comprehensive review of the entrepreneurial learning literature and its engagement with the material aspects of entrepreneurship, as part of the “material turn” in the social sciences. Drawing on actor-network theory, we construct a classificatory scheme and an evaluative matrix to find that this field is dominated by an anthropocentric bias and cognitivist approaches which largely ignore issues of materiality in entrepreneurship. However we also identify some heterogeneous network-based conceptualisations of entrepreneurial learning which could provide the foundations for more materially aware approaches. We conclude by calling for a material turn in entrepreneurial learning and outline some possible avenues for it

Ethics and education: taking globalization seriously

Central ethical concepts in education should be interpreted in a  global frame, beyond the conceptual confines of the nation state. My underlying claim is that globalisation’s effects and significance are profound, but that while new global practices, norms and structures are increasingly evident, developing our key ethical concepts and assumptions accordingly is limited by the narrow and outdated moral universe of the nation state. The intertwined demands of justice and democracy in education now require conceptual adjustment to meet a different world. First, the features and significance of globalisation are considered, with particular reference to globalisation in education, as well as political globalisation as indicative of the now outdated model of the Westphalian state. Secondly, a revised conception of justice based on recognition of global association is sketched and illustrated by the case of the global campaign for Education for All. Thirdly, possibilities for globally democratic decision-making after the monopoly of the nation state are outlined, advancing the discussion towards some concluding observations about the implications of the argument for the education of global citizens

Technology and restructuring the social field of dairy farming : hybrid capitals, ‘stockmanship’ and automatic milking systems

This paper draws on research exploring robotic and information technologies in livestock agriculture. Using Automatic Milking Systems (AMS) as an example we use the work of Bourdieu to illustrate how technology can be seen as restructuring the practices of dairy farming, the nature of what it is to be a dairy farmer, and the wider field of dairy farming. Approaching technology in this way and by drawing particularly upon the ‘thinking tools’ (Grenfell, 2008) of Pierre Bourdieu, namely field, capital and habitus, the paper critically examines the relevance of Bourdieu’s thought to the study of technology. In the heterogeneous agricultural context of dairy farming, we expand on Bourdieu’s types of capital to define what we have called ‘hybrid’ capital involving human-cow-technology collectives. The concept of hybrid capital expresses how the use of a new technology can shift power relations within the dairy field, affecting human-animal relations and changing the habitus of the stock person. Hybrid capital is produced through a co-investment of stock keepers, cows and technologies, and can become economically and culturally valuable within a rapidly restructuring dairying field when invested in making dairy farming more efficient and changing farmers’ social status and work-life balance. The paper shows how AMS and this emergent hybrid capital is associated with new but contested definitions of what counts as ‘good’ dairy farming practice, and with the emergence of new modes of dairy farmer habitus, within a wider dairy farming field whose contours are being redrawn through the implementation of new robotic and information technologies

Ethnographic Advocacy Against the Death Penalty

This article develops the concept of “ethnographic advocacy” to make sense of the humanizing, open‐ended knowledge practices involved in the defense of criminal defendants charged with capital murder. Drawing from anthropological fieldwork with well‐respected figures in the American capital defense bar, as well as my own professional experience as an investigator specializing in death penalty sentencing mitigation, I argue that effective advocacy for life occurs through qualitative knowledge practices that share notable methodological affinities with contemporary anthropological ethnography. The article concludes with a preliminary exploration of what the concept of ethnographic advocacy might reveal about academic anthropology\u27s own advocative engagements

A network-based view of regional growth

The need to better understand the mechanisms underlying regional growth patterns is widely recognised. This paper argues that regional growth is partly a function of the value created through inter-organisational flows of knowledge within and across regions. It is proposed that investment in calculative networks by organisations to access knowledge is a form of capital, termed network capital, which should be incorporated into regional growth models. The paper seeks to develop a framework to capture the value of network capital within these models based on the spatial configuration and the nature of the knowledge flowing through networks

Infrastructure transitions toward sustainability: a complex adaptive systems perspective

To ensure infrastructure assets are procured and maintained by government on behalf of citizens, appropriate policy and institutional architecture is needed, particularly if a fundamental shift to more sustainable infrastructure is the goal. The shift in recent years from competitive and resource-intensive procurement to more collaborative and sustainable approaches to infrastructure governance is considered a major transition in infrastructure procurement systems. In order to better understand this transition in infrastructure procurement arrangements, the concept of emergence from Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory is offered as a key construct. Emergence holds that micro interactions can result in emergent macro order. Applying the concept of emergence to infrastructure procurement, this research examines how interaction of agents in individual projects can result in different industry structural characteristics. The paper concludes that CAS theory, and particularly the concept of ‘emergence’, provides a useful construct to understand infrastructure procurement dynamics and progress towards sustainability

Network Governance at the Firm and Network Level: Goals, Routines, and Social Mechanisms

This article contributes to the general understanding of governance in networks and the achievement of private and common goals. Integrating transaction costs and social network theory, a simple integrated framework is provided for understanding why firms collaborate and under which conditions they establish durable networks that succeed in achieving goals. Network theory is extended by explicitly distinguishing between firm and network level governance, and by identifying governance mechanisms that adapt, coordinate, and safeguard customized exchanges. This way issues as how networks evolve, how they are governed, and ultimately, how collective outcomes might be generated can be better comprehended. This is especially relevant to policy planners and those having a perspective that goes beyond the performance of individual organizations.network governance, social network theory, governance mechanisms., Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Industrial Organization, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

What is Strategic Competence and Does it Matter? Exposition of the Concept and a Research Agenda

Drawing on a range of theoretical and empirical insights from strategic management and the cognitive and organizational sciences, we argue that strategic competence constitutes the ability of organizations and the individuals who operate within them to work within their cognitive limitations in such a way that they are able to maintain an appropriate level of responsiveness to the contingencies confronting them. Using the language of the resource based view of the firm, we argue that this meta-level competence represents a confluence of individual and organizational characteristics, suitably configured to enable the detection of those weak signals indicative of the need for change and to act accordingly, thereby minimising the dangers of cognitive bias and cognitive inertia. In an era of unprecedented informational burdens and instability, we argue that this competence is central to the longer-term survival and well being of the organization. We conclude with a consideration of the major scientific challenges that lie ahead, if the ideas contained within this paper are to be validated