Title: Regional Innovation Culture and the Transformational use of ICT in Europe: The affordances and limits of a comparative approach James Cornford KITE
1Regional Innovation Culture and the
Transformational use of ICT in Europe The
affordances and limits of a comparative
approachJames CornfordKITE
2Structure
- Starting Point
- Practical
- Theoretical
- Methodological
- Complicating Action
- Dealing with the case study heap
- The comparative approach (? small n variable
approach) - Resolution(?)
- Boundaries and entanglements
3Starting points
- Why do some regions seem to get more out of
contemporary ICT than others? But no agreed
measurements of quality of ICT use? - Model of transformative ICT use as
transgressive (multi-agency, multi-domain,
multi-level) - Original case studies of 12 regions in Europe
(documents and interviews) ( a household
survey)? - Case studies focused on five issues (networks,
leadership, learning, narrative, region coherence)
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5The ICT Use Agenda
- Four layers of debate about ICT and Regional
Development - Silicon Landscapes the location of ICT
manufacturing - But can every region have a chip fab/software
industry? - The Death of Distance the roll out of
telecommunication networks - Build it and they will come?
- Telematics Applications the take up of
specific technologies - But what are the technologies used for?
- Effective ICT usage
- But what is effective usage?
- All legitimate aspects of strategy but today Im
only concerned with the last one Effective Use
6Assumptions
Growth Employment Inclusion Sustainability Partici
pation
Regional Development
E-business E-Health E-Learning E-Government
Meaning Behaviour
Outcome
Bridging Networks Leadership/Followership
Narrative and Vision Organisational Learning
7Tranformative use
8Transformation B2C2G2B2G
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10Four Ideal Types of Response
Surfing
Floating
- Region as beneficiary
Swimming (against the tide)
Drowning
- Region structured as agent
11Critical Factors
- From literature
- Networks
- Leadership
- Narrative
- Learning
- Boundary management
12What kind of things do we know about KBE world?
- Not characterised by smooth, continuous equal
interval variables - Dramatic gulfs
- Thresholds and minima
- Sweet spots
- Winner takes all (positional) competition (Cf. F
Hirsch) - Messy sets, fuzzy boundaries, ambiguity
- Ecological EDGEs (Exploration, Development,
Growth and Exchange) - Harmony and disharmony (in tune)
13A Yen to Yin
- Case study as a practical and a theoretical
approach - ? interpretative (but often confused)
- Background
- exploratory or explanatory?
- generalising to explicit theory (rather than a
population or other theoretical categories) - a teaching aid moral stories?
- The role of the PhD in the proliferation of case
studies?
14The case study heap
- Theoretical interest in the plurality of specific
and conjunctural situations translated into the
rise of the case study - plus the lack of agreed KBE data and the
tyranny of the 3 year PhD and the rise of the
Business School - leads to the case study explosion.
- More and more regional case studies of the KBE
and cognate notions - but ? sustained and cumulative development of
understanding (cf. evidence based
movement/Cochrane Collaboration) - Not just in regional studies similar situation
in IS - What to do with this heap?
- Compost?
- Fuel?
- Something else?
15What to do with lots of case studies
- Can case studies amount to more than the sum of
the parts? - Not a small n survey! (not a source of
variables to put into statistical tests) - but not abandon the idea of cumulative
development of knowledge (everything is unique) - What can the comparative tradition offer?
- Recent developments associated with Charles Ragin
16Concepts of Causality
- Variable oriented approach
- Symmetrical
- Correlative (with lags)
- Partial (100 causality doled out to causes)
- Measurement
- Implied independence of causes
- Usually one solution
- Set theoretical approach
- Asymmetrical
- Combinatorial approach (causality on or off)
- Calibration
- Causes interact
- Many possible combinations of causes
17Set intersections
C
E
A
B
D
BCADE
ABCDE
18Fuzzy sets
- Crisp set in or out
- Fuzzy sets
- Definitely in
- More in than out
- More out than in
- Definitely out
- E.g.,
- The set of catholic regions
- The set of democratic countries
- The set of learning regions?
19Five Clues
Fora, Events, Cross-Domain Teams
Leadership style Reputation Position Track Record
Regional Boundedness
Regional Innovation Culture
Evaluation Observatories Studies Visits Co-product
ion
Documents Stories Pictures Accounts
20A Goldilocks Agenda
- Linking and Bridging Networks
- Too much ? information overload
- Too little ? Isolation and lack of co-ordination
- Leader Follower interaction
- Too much ? lack of criticism and debate, conflict
- Too little ? failure to mobilise
- Narrative/Vision
- Too much ? exhaustion, cynicism, lack of debate,
inability to react - Too little ? lack of direction
- Institutional Learning
- Too little ? repeating the same mistakes
- Too much ? pure scholasticism, perpetual piloting
- Regional Boundedness
- Too little ?Global fad chasing mindless adoption
of best practice - Too much ? lack of openness to ideas from outside
21Main findings
- Low Networks Low Narrative Low
Boundedness Low Leadership - Or ()
- High Networks Low Boundedness Low Narrative
- Split the criteria One set is Low another set
is High (not mirror image of each other) - Note the first equation is ? to High Networks
High Narrative High Boundedness High
Leadership
22Conclusion
- Does the comparative approach add value to the
case study - Comparative approach has some real benefits in
terms of structuring and organising thinking - Building a clear audit trail for argument
- Solves some problems by bringing in substantive
knowledge - Solves others by making problem (e.g.,
boundedness) into sets (data) - But fuzzy sets not fuzzy concepts!