Regional Innovation Culture and the Transformational use of ICT in Europe: The affordances and limits of a comparative approach James Cornford KITE

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Regional Innovation Culture and the
Transformational use of ICT in Europe The
affordances and limits of a comparative
approachJames CornfordKITE
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Structure

• Starting Point
• Practical
• Theoretical
• Methodological
• Complicating Action
• Dealing with the case study heap
• The comparative approach (? small n variable
  approach)
• Resolution(?)
• Boundaries and entanglements

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Starting 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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The 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

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Assumptions
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
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Tranformative use
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Transformation B2C2G2B2G
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Four Ideal Types of Response
Surfing
Floating
- Region as beneficiary
Swimming (against the tide)
Drowning
- Region structured as agent
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Critical Factors

• From literature
• Networks
• Leadership
• Narrative
• Learning
• Boundary management

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What 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)

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A 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?

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The 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?

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What 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

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Concepts 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

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Set intersections
C
E
A
B
D
BCADE
ABCDE
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Fuzzy 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?

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Five 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
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A 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

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Main 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

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Conclusion

• 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!