Current Research at CRIC
Completed
Projects | PhDs
The following themes form the long term conceptual core of our
research programme. We recognise that these will continue to develop.
For example, the growing politicisation of the innovation process
and the increasing questioning of the value of new technologies
could be developed into a more prominent part of our programme (embryonic
elements of this dimension are already included in our work on instituted
economic processes).
Theme 1: Distributed InnovationProcesses
(lead directors are Professor
Stan Metcalfe & Professor
Ian Miles)
In this long term theme we will continue to explore the consequences
of conceptualising and analysing innovation as a process which is
intrinsically 'distributed' across several co-ordinated contributing
organisations, rather than contained within one organisation. Of
course it is not in itself new to describe innovation in this way.
In recent years many authors have provided a wealth of empirical
and theoretical accounts of innovations in which the critical element
in the story has been the way that several firms and other actors
have all had to make necessary contributions in order for particular
innovations to be realised. The starting point for much of this
literature however, is to take as the 'base model', an innovation
process which is contained within one firm, and then to
consider how that base model needs to be modified or enlarged to
encompass the complexities that arise from co-ordinating innovation
activities across several firms or agencies. Our approach is to
invert that assumption. We wish to add further to the insights which
arise from adopting a starting point in which multi-organisation
innovation is the norm, and single firm innovation is the exception.
It is possible to characterise the principal theoretical
issues and problems which need attention if we are to improve on
current perspectives and develop a more theoretically integrated
model of distributed innovation.
- The first issue is the mechanism(s) through which economic co-ordination
is achieved between the various firms and organisations who participate
in distributed innovation. Whether we consider geographers describing
industrial districts, or innovation scholars describing collaborative
R&D activities, or any of the other literatures on the topic, we find
that there is a need to somehow theorise a degree of collective
action amongst firms in a distributed innovation network which
cannot be reduced to market transactions and formal contracts.
So to make progress we have to squarely confront this problem. Of
course, the 'National Systems' literature already does this to some
degree, but, as we have argued already it does not fully resolve the
issues.
- The second issue is the need to clearly disentangle, at least
analytically, three discrete categories of activity which are
the object of economic co-ordination within distributed innovation
systems. These are first, co-ordination amongst members of
a distributed system to achieve the creation of one specific innovation;
secondly, co-ordination which takes the form of individual
members of a distributed system introducing innovations in their own
direct outputs, which then require, trigger or 'induce' innovations
in the outputs or activities of the other members of the distributed
system. Thirdly, there is the economic co-ordination which
is required to achieve regularised production and distribution
of (as opposed to innovation in) the various goods and services
produced by the member firms in the system and by the system as a
whole. Part of this third domain is the specific power relationships
within distributed systems which exist between firms performing quite
separate economic functions; as already exemplified in our work on
supermarkets and companies further up the food product supply chain.
- The third issue concerns incentives and rewards. The establishment
and operation of distributed innovation systems has been largely analysed
to date in terms of the difficulties of assembling the inputs to innovation;
the attractions of reducing risk and uncertainty by creating stable
networks; the economies resulting from agglomeration; the shaping
forces arising from national contexts and so on. These approaches
assume or suggest that distributed innovation systems can
enjoy competitive advantage with respect to other firms, or groups
of firms, who might be wishing to compete in the same product markets.
However, there has been no detailed treatment of the actual economic
returns to a particular distributed innovation system, or of the distribution
of the returns to the individual member organisations within the system.
Nor has there been any treatment of how this pattern of returns might
change over time and influence the dynamics of a distributed
system.
These three issues (or sets of issues) might be referred to for
shorthand purposes as the system co-ordination problem;
the system scope problem; and the competitive dynamics
problem. It is our intention in this work use a combination of conceptual
development and empirical work in order to make substantial progress
on these problems.
Associated paper: Analysing
Distributed Innovation Processes
Theme 2: Competing Concepts of Competition
(lead directors is Professor
Stan Metcalfe)
This theme is based upon an approach to the analysis of competition
which links closely with the two other CRIC themes (distributed
innovation processes and market institutions and the formation of
demand). DIPs shape the pattern of innovation and competitive performance
and competitive processes shape the institution of DIPs. In particular,
the fact that innovation is carried out in distributed fashion through
networks of interacting firms and organizations in services and
manufacturing, and that the relationship between suppliers and users
is crucial to the innovation process, jointly mean that innovation
networks closely interpenetrate with market networks. From this
emerging perspective we have developed a challenging conceptual
programme of work to interact with the empirical parts of our programme.
Our aim here is to develop a genuine economic sociology of the dynamics
of modern knowledge based economies. The main elements of this are
defined in terms of the following strands.
- Contrasting Economic, Sociological and Managerial Perspectives on
the Competitive Process. This strand will seek to compare, contrast
and, where appropriate, synthesise the many perspectives on competition
arising from these different literatures and others including economic
geography. It will provide a comprehensive statement of current understanding
and its development in different disciplines. A comparison, for example
between the work of scholars such as Krugman, Storper and Porter,
or between Nelson/Winter and Humbolt would be very instructive. This
will provide important background material for the CRIC programme,
it will enable us to engage constructively with other disciplines
outwith the innovation literature and it help link our work with the
strategy and policy literatures.
- Complexity and Competition: Strengths and Limitations of an Adaptive
Evolutionary Approach. The complexity approach views the economy as
a complex adaptive system. Characterised by computer based modelling
and simulation of economic agents and behaviours, it provides an alternative
framework for examining how various types of microeconomic structures
lead to particular aggregate behaviour. The dynamic of the competitive
process is one in which economic agents (individuals, firms, markets,
regulatory institutions) continually adapt and co-evolve both as a
response to feedback from and in an attempt to shape the environment.
This strand will seek to apply the ideas and concepts from the rapidly
developing literatures on complexity and adaptation to the theory
of competition and development. It will connect the CRIC work with
the wider study of economic growth and innovation in knowledge-based
economies.
- Competition and the Growth of Knowledge. The final aspect of this
research agenda is its emphasis on the connection between the process
of competition and the development of knowledge. This is one of the
most challenging aspects of our work but it is one that provides important
links to the study of economic growth, the contribution of science
and technology policy and the nature of the knowledge based firm.
This theme applies not only to the development of formal knowledge
but equally to the less formal knowledge of organisation and market
demand. Thus it provides a bridge with our work on distributed innovation
processes, on outsourcing, and on the construction of markets. There
are also important connections with an emerging body of work on complex
adaptive processes and the relation between innovation and competition.
Theme 3: Consumption and Innovation
(lead directors are Professor
Alan Warde & Professor
Ian Miles)
The principal aim of this long term theme is to develop a theoretical
and substantive account of the relationship between social and economic
change and patterns of consumption and demand. Among its key objectives
are:
- to consolidate and refine a conceptual framework for understanding
the relationship between production and consumption, that places particular
emphasis on the logic of the different social practices that consumers
engage in and the significance of time and temporalities in the consumption
process.
- to explore and evaluate the role of different techniques for predicting
demand and for formulating new ways to sell products to final consumers
in the process of forming innovation strategies.
- to develop a substantive account of the relationship between social
trends and patterns of consumption and demand, which is historical,
which identifies the routine element of consumption practices, which
relates to the impact of changes in work on consumption and everyday
life, and which deals simultaneously with the formal and informal
economies.
- evaluate competing explanations of taste and preferences in the
economic, sociological and managerial literatures, with particular
reference to the effects of differential resources (especially social
capital) and trust and mistrust on the consumption of innovative products.
We propose to make use of a network analysis perspective.
Thus, with a particular interest in the effect of final consumption
on innovation and competition, we seek to explore comparatively
the development of mass and niche consumption (initially with special
reference to food and food services). We seek to compile a database
of information about European trends in household expenditure and
adoption of innovative products and to subject this to secondary
analysis. There are considerable technical difficulties in this
task, but the pay off in terms of understanding the relationship
between social change and consumption behaviour will be significant.
Associated paper: Between
Demand & Consumption: A Framework for Research
Current ESRC funded projects associated with Theme 3:
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Centre
for Research on Innovation and Competition
