SPECIAL ISSUEDzifa Ametowobla, Nina Baur & Robert Jungmann (Eds.): Methods of Innovation Research: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches
Innovation Studies today are dominated by two typical theory/method bundles that emerged across disciplinary debates: ethnographies of innovation, evolving mainly from Science and Technology Studies (STS), and (national, regional, territorial) systems of innovation research in economics and geography. Therefore, methodological debates in the field, on the one hand, cover only a small range of research questions, data types, designs, as well as tools for data analysis. On the other hand, methodological tools are strangely detached from the general debate on social science as well as historical and process-oriented methodology.The hypothesis motivating this HSR Special Issue is that the dominance of these deeply institutionalized agendas within the research field on innovation hampers an adequately broad theoretical and methodological access to the complex processes that are characteristic for innovation. Right now, this problem is only discussed theoretically. With this HSR Special Issue, we want to: (1) take a first step towards integrating the methodological de-bates in innovation research and the social sciences, (2) suggest methodological alternatives to ethnographies of innovation, as well as indicator-based systems of innovation research, (3) present alternative forms of indicator-based and ethnographic methods. The methodological tools presented here can provide a broader empirical base for substantial theorizing about innovation as well as for dealing with research topics and theoretical problems as yet unexplored in the field.
Abstracts of all contributions are available on our website <http://www.gesis.org/hsr/>. For orders, please contact <hsr-order@gesis.org>.
CONTENTS
SPECIAL ISSUE – Methods of Innovation Research
Robert Jungmann, Nina Baur & Dzifa Ametowobla Grasping Processes of Innovation Empirically. A Call for Expanding the Methodological Toolkit. An Introduction. p. 7.
Michael Hutter, Hubert Knoblauch, Werner Rammert & Arnold Windeler Innovation Society Today. The Reflexive Creation of Novelty. p. 30.
Eva Bund, Ulrike Gerhard, Michael Hoelscher & Georg Mildenberger A Methodological Framework for Measuring Social Innovation. p. 48.
Thomas Laux Qualitative Comparative Analysis as a Method for Innovation Research: Analysing Legal Innovations in OECD Countries. p. 79.
Julian Stubbe Comparative Heuristics from an STS Perspective. Inquiring ‘Novelty’ in Material Practice. p. 109.
Anina Engelhardt The Sociology of Knowledge Approach of Discourse Analysis in Innovation Research: Evaluation of Innovations in Contemporary Fine Art. p. 130.
Philipp Altmann Studying Discourse Innovations: The Case of the Indigenous Movement in Ecuador. p. 161.
Anika Noack Hermeneutical Interpretations in Ethnographies of Innovations. From New Ideas to Social Innovations. p. 185.
Grit Petschick Ethnographic Panels for Analyzing Innovation Processes. p. 210.
Annika Naber Qualitative Experiment as a Participating Method in Innovation Research. p. 233.
Dörte Ohlhorst & Susanne Schön Constellation Analysis as a Means of Interdisciplinary Innovation Research-Theory Formation from the Bottom Up. p. 258.
Georg Reischauer Combining Artefact Analysis, Interview and Participant Observation to Study the Organizational Sensemaking of Knowledge-Based Innovation. p. 279.
Jochen Gläser & Grit Laudel A Bibliometric Reconstruction of Research Trails for Qualitative Investigations of Scientific Innovations. p. 299.
Philip Roth Including the Diary Method in the Investigation of Practices Constituting Social Innovation Networks. p. 331.