 An actor-centric bottom-up view of institutions: Combinatorial knowledge dynamics through the eyes of institutional entrepreneurs and institutional navigatorsEnvironment and Planning C, 2017, vol. 35, issue 4, 584-599 Abstract: This paper argues that lack of focus on agency, intention, and interest is a weakness in regional innovation studies and studies focusing on knowledge dynamics. There is a need to systematically anchor a role for agency in institutionally oriented regional innovation studies, and thus to reach beyond snapshots of top-down institutions, and to produce a more nuanced view on institutions bottom up. To elaborate the conceptual link between institutions and combinatorial knowledge dynamics, this paper discusses two intertwined theoretical lenses, and proposes a conceptual framework for a study of institutions bottom-up. First, the basic tenets of institutions are discussed; second, a conceptual distinction between cumulative and combinatorial knowledge dynamics is introduced; and, third, a conceptual framework to study institutions bottom-up to complement top-down oriented studies is proposed. The main scientific motivation here is to open a bottom-up view on institutions by linking them to the combinatorial knowledge dynamics approach by using agency as an intermediating framework. Keywords: Institution; agency; knowledge dynamics; combinatorial knowledge; institutional entrepreneurship; navigation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:35:y:2017:i:4:p:584-599 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Environment and Planning C |
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