Gernot Grabher

Temporary Architectures of Learning: Knowledge Governance in Project Ecologies

This paper is motivated by the intention to contribute to a contextual understanding of projects. More specifically, the analysis starts from the assumption that essential processes of creating and sedimenting knowledge accrue at the interface between projects and the organizations, communities, and networks in and through which projects operate. By adopting such a contextual perspective, the chief aim of the present study is to unfold a conceptual framework for analyzing processes of project-based learning. This conceptual framework is built around the notion of the project ecology. By consecutively disentangling the constitutive layers of project ecologies — the core team, the firm, the epistemic community, and the personal networks — the basic organizational architecture of project ecologies is revealed. This architecture is employed as a theoretical template for an exploration of learning processes in two ecologies which are driven by opposing logics of creating and sedimenting knowledge. In this comparative analysis, the cumulative learning logic of the software ecology in Munich is confronted with the disruptive learning regime in the London advertising ecology.

Ecologies of creativity: the Village, the Group, and the heterarchic organisation of the British advertising industry

In the 1980s, the hegemony of the large US advertising networks has been challenged by a new breed of London-based agencies who pioneered what is known in the trade as ‘second wave’. On the one hand, second wave implied the emancipation of Soho from an ‘outpost of Madison Avenue’ to the ‘advertising village’ on the basis of momentous product and process innovations. On the other hand, a few London agencies rose to global top positions on the crest of the second wave by transforming themselves from international advertising networks into global communication groups. This paper starts from the assumption that both, the localised cluster of advertising agencies in the advertising village (the ‘Village’) and the global communications group (the ‘Group’), share basic principles of social organisation. It aims at demonstrating that the organisational logic of both the Village and the Group can be conceptualised in terms of a heterarchy. By drawing on case-study evidence from Soho on the one hand and from the world leading communications business, WPP, on the other, the five basic features of heterarchies—diversity, rivalry, tags, projects, and reflexivity—will provide the conceptual tools for the investigation into the social organisation of the Village and the Group.

Learning in Projects, Remembering in Networks?: Communality, Sociality, and Connectivity in Project Ecologies

This paper seeks to contrast two opposing logics of project-based learning. Accumulation and modularization of knowledge denote the key imperatives of a learning logic that is exemplified by the software ecology in Munich. Learning is geared towards moving from ‘one-off’ to repeatable solutions. This cumulative logic is juxtaposed with a discontinuous learning regime that is driven by the maxims of originality and creativity. ‘Learning by switching’ here signifies the emblematic knowledge practice that is exemplified by the London advertising ecology. The paper explores these learning modes by subsequently exploring processes of learning and forgetting within and between the core team, the firm, and the epistemic community tied together for the completion of a specific project. In addition, the paper also directs attention to more diffuse learning processes in an awareness space that extends beyond and beneath the actual production ties. Instead of mapping the awareness space along a simplistic scalar nesting of network density and knowledge types (reduced to the notorious global vs local dichotomy), the paper proposes a differentiation that primarily involves different social and communicative logics. Whereas communality signifies lasting and intense ties, sociality signifies intense and yet ephemeral relations and connectivity indicates transient and weak networks.

Trading routes, bypasses, and risky intersections: mapping the travels of `networks' between economic sociology and economic geography

In economic geography the notion of the network has come to play a critical role in a range of debates. Yet networks are rarely construed in an explicit fashion. They are, rather, assumed as some sort of more enduring social relations. This paper seeks to foreground these implicit assumptions - and their limitations - by tracing the selective engagement of economic geography with network approaches in economic sociology. The perception of networks in economic geography is mainly informed by the network governance approach that is founded on Mark Granovetters notion of embeddedness. By embracing the network governance approach, economic geography bypassed the older tradition of the social network approach. Economic geography thus discarded not only the concerns for network position and structure but also more calculative and strategic perceptions of networks prevailing in Ron Burts work. Beyond these two dominant traditions, economic geography has, more recently, started to tinker with the poststructuralist metaphor of the rhizome of actor-network theory while it took no notice of Harrison Whites notions of publics and polymorphous network domains.

The Neglected King: The Customer in the New Knowledge Ecology of Innovation

Abstract Despite the universal mantra that “the customer is king,” the role of the customer has so far seemed to have been confined to a passive recipient of products. Recently, however, this traditional perception has been challenged. On the one hand, users are increasingly appreciated as reflexive actors who are actively involved in the evaluation, modif ication, and configuration of products. On the other hand, beyond the established repertoire to access external knowledge through interorganizational networks, firms increasingly attempt to harness user knowledge. These two concurrent shifts do not result in a smooth convergence. Rather, they open up a highly contested terrain in which habitual distinctions between the producer and user are blurred. In this article, we map the evolving terrain of user-producer interaction in innovation processes. Specifically, we contrast more traditional approaches to incorporate customer knowledge with an emerging class of innovative user-producer relationships, provisionally dubbed “co-development.” We then propose a typology of different modes of codevelopment that is organized along two dimensions: the degree of user involvement and the prevailing locus of knowledge production. This typology seeks to capture the heterogeneity of co-development approaches and to provide a conceptual template for further empirical research on user involvement in innovation.

Yet Another Turn? The Evolutionary Project in Economic Geography

Abstract What does the economic in economic geography stand for? For much of the 1990s up to the more recent past, answers to this pertinent question frequently referred to the embeddedness-network paradigm of the new economic sociology. At the same time, economic geography more and more drew inspiration, metaphors, and practices from an increasingly diverse range of schools. In terms of the disciplinary orientation, economic geography, on the one hand, remains firmly engaged with sociology, although interest seems to expand from the Granovetterian paradigm to the poststructuralism of Latour and Callon. On the other hand, economic geography’s interest in heterodox economic geography is gaining new momentum. Above all, evolutionary approaches have attracted considerable attention that most recently culminated in a range of programmatic statements to develop a distinct evolutionary economic geography. It is these attempts to develop a collective agenda that Danny MacKinnon, Andrew Cumbers, Andy Pike, Kean Birch, and Robert McMaster take issue with. Subsequently, Ron Boschma and Koen Frenken, Jürgen Essletzbichler, and Geoffrey Hodgson comment on this “sympathetic critique.” A rejoinder by Andy Pike and his coauthors concludes this symposium.

Knowledge transfer across projects: Codification in creative, high-tech and engineering industries

The use of codification to support knowledge transfer across projects has been explored in several recent, and mostly qualitative, studies. Building on that research, this article puts forward hypotheses about the antecedents of knowledge codification, and tests them on a sample of 540 inter-organizational projects carried out in the creative, high-tech and engineering industries. We find that the presence of strong industry norms governing the division of labour discourages knowledge transfer through codification, as suggested by the existing qualitative studies. The presence of a system integrator plays an important role in driving the use of codification for knowledge transfer, to some extent embodying an organizational memory in volatile project environments. Finally, the level of use of administrative control in the project is a robust predictor of attempts to transfer knowledge via codification. When these antecedents are taken into account, the novelty of products and services plays a smaller role than previously found in determining the use of codification.

Fuzzy Concepts, Scanty Evidence, Policy Distance? Debating Ann Markusen' s Assessment of Critical Regional Studies

During the last 20 years, the field of regional studies that vague definitions seriously limit the scope for empirically exploring and systematically developing and economic geography witnessed an increasing profurther the various concepts in a comparative manner. liferation of competing and partially overlapping conThird, we have noticed the difficulties of getting across ceptional approaches. In the midst of this growing the content of the concepts developed by economic polyphony Ann Markusen raised her voice and geographers and regional scientists to policy makers launched a passionate intervention in which she takes and practitioners, both at the regional and national stock of the prevailing research practice in our field level. MARTIN and SUNLEY, 2003, p. 9, for example, (MARKUSEN, 1999). In her sobering diagnosis, pubrecently contrasted the modest influence of geographers lished in 1999 in this journal, she laments three unwith the stronger policy impact of economists and desirable developments that undermine the scientific management scholars à la Porter. integrity and societal relevance of regional studies. Since Markusen’s pointed critique in our perception First, conceptualization increasingly has become echoed some endorsing concerns and fundamental fuzzy, which means that concepts point at phenomena challenges in our field, we took the initiative to start a which have two or more alternative meanings and can public debate and invited Ray Hudson, Jamie Peck and therefore not be identified, applied and operationalized Arnoud Lagendijk to respond (their contributions have by different scholars. Second, the standards of evidence originally been published in our on-line SECONS are falling: empirical evidence is not only scarce, it is (Socio-economics of Space) Discussion Forum also often collected in a selective and anecdotal way, (www.giub.uni-bonn.de/grabher/). Both Hudson and which is not transparent to others. Third, the fuzziness Peck, while explicitly agreeing with Markusen that of concepts and the falling standards of evidence, in methodological issues deserve more attention in turn, increasingly weaken the policy relevance of regional studies, also critically examine her understandregional studies. ing of scientific rigour and the status of replicability in Markusen’s provocative verdict triggered surprisingly particular. For Hudson, the plea for replicability reflects few reactions, at least not in public academia. And yet rather a traditional than a critical conception of theory her sharp intervention, in our observation, resonates that, in fact, would increase policy distance even with some latently shared views and opinions in the further. Peck, in his contribution, also offers construccommunity. First, our and the experience of many tive suggestions for case-study research that not necesof our colleagues in class shows that it has become sarily has to sacrifice methodological robustness for increasingly intricate to convey differences between qualitative depth. Lagendijk’s main argument is that genuine conceptual distinctions and mere semantic the slipping standards in regional studies are not so nuances in contemporary theoretical reasoning to much due to substantive changes, such as the cultural or students in regional studies. Recently, LAGENDIJK, institutional turns, but to lacking standards of academic 2001, and MOULAERT and SEKIA, 2003, for example, conversation more broadly. In particular the transfer of opened up promising paths to tackle this problem by concepts between different fields that aspires to more developing a pedigree of ‘territorial innovation models’ than a straight-forward metaphorical transfer puts high which include, among others industrial districts, the demands on the practice of conversation. All three innovative milieu, learning regions, regional innovation authors express strong reservations with Markusen’s systems and new industrial spaces. Second, debates of implicit preference for quantitative approaches thus conference papers and research results quite often circle privileging one form of evidence and, more critically, of theory. around the widespread, not to say notorious complaint

Field-Configuring Events: Arenas for Innovation and Learning?

Field-configuring events and their impact upon organizations, networks and organizational fields have become an important focal point for research. Since the coining of the term (Meyer, Gaba, and Colwell 2005; Lampel and Meyer 2008), the body of research on events such as trade fairs, conferences, or festivals has grown in different disciplinary contexts, particularly management and organization studies and economic geography. The general gist of these studies is that interactions at temporally and spatially bounded sites are marked by “predictable unpredictability” (Lampel 2011) and “allow disparate constituents to become aware of their common concerns, join together, share information, coordinate their actions, shape or subvert agendas, and mutually influence field structuration” (Anand and Jones 2008, 1037). Research on organized events more broadly has a longer tradition in the two disciplines (for an overview, see Müller-Seitz and Schüßler 2013; Schüßler and Sydow 2013). Previous work in management and organization studies has analyzed events such as board meetings, strategy meetings or committees on an organizational level as sites for strategy making (e.g. Jarzabkowski and Seidl 2008). On a field level, Rao (1994) has examined certification contests as a way of legitimization new organizational forms and Zilber (2007) studied conferences as occasions for making sense of disrupted industry. Research on creative industries has perceived events such as festivals or award ceremonies as sites for the negotiation of values (e.g. Moeran and Strandgaard Pedersen 2011). In economic geography, trade fairs have been conceptualized as temporary clusters (Maskell, Bathelt, and Malmberg 2006) and cyclical events (Power and Jansson 2008), playing an important role in structuring global business exchanges. This literature has elucidated that trade fairs not only afford opportunities for acquiring knowledge through face-to-face interaction, but also for obtaining information by observing and monitoring other participants (Bathelt and Schuldt 2010). Trade fairs, it is argued, create a dense ecology of information and communication flows that provides opportunities for the exploration of market trends and the generation and maintenance of networks (e.g. Schuldt and Bathelt 2011).

From being there to being aware: Confronting geographical and sociological imaginations of copresence:

In economic geography, the notion of copresence has been at the very center of the research agenda for decades. The elaboration of the benefits of colocation and physical proximity was (and still is) a chief aim of the disciplinary project to demonstrate that “geography matters”. The geographical concern with colocation, proximity and distance, in fact, resonates with the sociological discourse on copresence. And yet, the relationship between copresence and its (distant) geographical relatives has rarely been explicated in a systematic fashion. By drawing on the seminal contributions by Goffman, Giddens and Knorr Cetina, amongst others, this account confronts the geographical conceptions of colocation, proximity and distance with sociological perceptions of copresence. By advancing from copresence as “being there” to copresence as “being aware” we seek to push beyond the prevailing physical perceptions of copresence towards a more socially constructivist understanding that accounts for the simultaneity and mutual conditioning of diverse modes of copresence and absence.