The ISMS project (Innovations Systems in Marine Sectors) is investigating innovation systems comparatively; a) along the north Atlantic rim, in effect in coastal regions in Norway, Scotland, Iceland and Newfoundland and b) in a north-south comparison between the west coast of Norway and the southern coast of South Africa. The Project asks two questions: How are innovation systems and the (business) power of democratic authorities related? How does standardisation of institutions affect the power and productivity of innovation networks?
The Project assumes that the future of innovation is dependent on a sharp distinction between learning- and entrepreneurial processes, or between science and politics, between describing the world and changing it -- through new technology widely defined. The distinction can improve interaction.
ISMS intends to contribute to the "future of innovation", in two meanings: 1) the future conditions for productive innovations within the constraints of sustainable use of natural resources in the marine sectors; and 2) The development of the content and power of the concept of innovation in organisation studies and management.
My impression is that planning- and innovation studies were important in organisation theory in the 1950s and 1960s, confer March and Simon Organisations from 1958, but has since been silenced through a wave of neo-institutionalism. That contribution argues that people opportunistically adjust to dominant norms and values. Innovation studies have survived in historical investigations and in institutional economics. My impression is that the concept has been left to business economics. There many are uninterested because basically - markets take care of the signalling processes that stimulate the "correct" innovations at the "correct" times and places. The Business University in Bergen, Norway for example, has no unit specifically engaged in innovation studies.
I believe the concept is important in the social and economic sciences strategically because of the dramatic "rise of the West" (cf. Robert Marks 2002). From about 1700 the world experienced the emergence of European societies with an exceptional learning capacity, in the form of natural science - and innovativeness in the form of machine- and organisational technology. The collapse of innovation studies in the social sciences from about 1980 may be explained by power elites increasingly hiding in markets and behind concepts like self-organising systems (Luhmann) and globalisation (Bauman), leaving the arena for actual innovations to those elites, undisturbed by scientific studies and political demands for market regulations.
My view of "the future of innovation" can perhaps be summed up in two propositions: 1) The future of innovations within the constraint of sustainable use of natural resources is bleak if the power of actors that hide in markets continues to expand; and 2) The future of the concept of innovation is dependent upon the mobilisation of social and political power demanding exactly such sustainability. The less such movements, the less focus on learning- and innovation systems and the more focus on a limited, psychological concept of entrepreneurship. The more power to such social and political movements, the larger the interest in innovation systems as a formative and civilising process of modern societies.
The ISMS project (Innovations Systems in Marine Sectors) is investigating innovation systems comparatively; a) along the north Atlantic rim, in effect in coastal regions in Norway, Scotland, Iceland and Newfoundland and b) in a north-south comparison between the west coast of Norway and the southern coast of South Africa. The Project asks two questions: How are innovation systems and the (business) power of democratic authorities related? How does standardisation of institutions affect the power and productivity of innovation networks?
The Project assumes that the future of innovation is dependent on a sharp distinction between learning- and entrepreneurial processes, or between science and politics, between describing the world and changing it -- through new technology widely defined. The distinction can improve interaction.
ISMS intends to contribute to the "future of innovation", in two meanings: 1) the future conditions for productive innovations within the constraints of sustainable use of natural resources in the marine sectors; and 2) The development of the content and power of the concept of innovation in organisation studies and management.
My impression is that planning- and innovation studies were important in organisation theory in the 1950s and 1960s, confer March and Simon Organisations from 1958, but has since been silenced through a wave of neo-institutionalism. That contribution argues that people opportunistically adjust to dominant norms and values. Innovation studies have survived in historical investigations and in institutional economics. My impression is that the concept has been left to business economics. There many are uninterested because basically - markets take care of the signalling processes that stimulate the "correct" innovations at the "correct" times and places. The Business University in Bergen, Norway for example, has no unit specifically engaged in innovation studies.
I believe the concept is important in the social and economic sciences strategically because of the dramatic "rise of the West" (cf. Robert Marks 2002). From about 1700 the world experienced the emergence of European societies with an exceptional learning capacity, in the form of natural science - and innovativeness in the form of machine- and organisational technology. The collapse of innovation studies in the social sciences from about 1980 may be explained by power elites increasingly hiding in markets and behind concepts like self-organising systems (Luhmann) and globalisation (Bauman), leaving the arena for actual innovations to those elites, undisturbed by scientific studies and political demands for market regulations.
My view of "the future of innovation" can perhaps be summed up in two propositions: 1) The future of innovations within the constraint of sustainable use of natural resources is bleak if the power of actors that hide in markets continues to expand; and 2) The future of the concept of innovation is dependent upon the mobilisation of social and political power demanding exactly such sustainability. The less such movements, the less focus on learning- and innovation systems and the more focus on a limited, psychological concept of entrepreneurship. The more power to such social and political movements, the larger the interest in innovation systems as a formative and civilising process of modern societies.
