title: Die Entstehung regionaler Innovationsnetzwerke unter Einfluss politischer Förderung - Ein longitudinaler und interdisziplinärer Forschungsansatz
title: The Development of Regional Innovation Networks under Political Funding - A Longitudinal and Interdisciplinary Approach
Creators: name: Dettmann, Anja
Publisher: name: Philipps-Universität Marburg
Year: 2013
Subjects: Political funding
Socialpsychology
Geografie, Reisen
Innovation network
Region
Politik
Sozialpsychologie
Innovationsforschung
Netzwerk
Evolutionary

description: Innovation networks in science
      became very popular during the last 15 years. One reason is
      that innovations are seen as a main trigger for economic
      development today. Another reason is that in a densely
      connected world networks of relationships have a key role in
      innovation processes. But how people build up relationships,
      exchange information and create something new are fascinating
      but also incredible complex processes. Both, the fascination
      and the complexity, lead to the tremendous amount of
      innovation studies we see today in science. Additionally,
      politicians in Germany and Europe were also caught by the
      concept of innovation networks – and even more by the
      economic effects a successful initiation of those networks
      can have. For instance, due to the political programs of the
      ‘Bund’, today we have more than 200 funded innovation
      networks in Germany and more are still being set up. Thus,
      political funding became a very important trigger and shaper
      of innovation networks in Germany. But, the networks
      political programs create are very different to the
      scientific understanding of innovation networks. Whereas in
      science they are nodes and ties uncovered by the scientist,
      for politicians they are rather a group of co-operating
      people, visible and conscious to their envi-ronment. But how
      to study such a group-like network with the
      relationship-orientated tools we currently have in science?
      This is the first basic question this thesis will apply to.
      For this purpose, firstly group-like innovation networks are
      theoretically characterised in order to design secondly a new
      approach that can study their development. To develop this
      approach – which basically analyses six features standing for
      a group’s ability to work and innovate – social psychological
      literature is included and for the first time linked to the
      literature on innovation net-works and economic geography. So
      the two main questions of this thesis are (1) how influential
      is space on network (group) processes and characteristics and
      (2) how important is the network’s development as a social
      and work entity for a later innovation’s success? Hence,
      geographical as well as social psychological questions are
      posed to the development of innovation networks in this
      thesis. But talking about network development indicates that
      this approach is one of the few analysing innovation networks
      over time. Therefore, distinct stages of network formation
      are developed theoretically and conceptually. In order to
      compare different stages of development, the network
      information is gained in a highly standardised way from
      documents and interviews with network managers of 49 public
      funded innovation networks in the Neue Länder (eastern Part
      of Germany). This standardisation opened up the chance to use
      statistical analysis tech-niques. This way, social processes
      and relations lying beyond an individual awareness can be
      discovered mathematically. This is the key to actually
      realise the developed approach: measur-ing characteristics
      and processes of innovation networks on the level of groups.
      Finally, going back to the policy, this thesis aims to
      analyse the impact of public funding on the development of
      innovation networks. All of the 49 analysed networks were
      funded by ‘Innovationsforen’ – a program made by the German
      Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). With the
      distinct conceptualisation of the funding stage and
      programmatic items, this study is one of the very view that
      can shed light on the ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘how long’ of funding
      effects in the network formation. In summary, this thesis is
      a careful first step in the field of a social psychological
      network analysis in a longitudinal way.
description: Innovationsnetzwerke gelten heute
      als Schlüssel für eine langfristige und positive Entwicklung
      von Unternehmen und Regionen. Sowohl in der Wissenschaft als
      auch in der Politik sind diese Partnerverbünde darum ein
      vielbeachtetes Thema. Die vorliegende Arbeit geht bei der
      Untersuchung von fast 50 geförderten Innovationsnetzwerken
      einen neuen Weg und erforscht diese nicht mehr als System von
      Beziehungen, sondern als Gruppe im Sinne einer sozialen und
      einer Arbeitseinheit. Wie diese Verbünde über die Zeit und
      mittels der Unterstützung eines Förderprogramms die Fähigkeit
      zur Innovation erlangen und welche Rolle dabei Raum,
      Umfeldfaktoren, Beziehungen und die Eigenschaften des
      Verbundes als Gruppe spielen, zeigen die hier erarbeiteten
      Untersuchungsergebnisse auf. In dieser Arbeit werden zum
      ersten Mal sozialpsychologische Theorien und
      Forschungsansätze systematisch in die Wirtschaftsgeographie
      übertragen. Am Ende wird deutlich, dass Innovationskraft auch
      maßgeblich dadurch entsteht, dass Netzwerkakteure ein echtes
      Team werden.