Peter Karnøe

Bricolage versus breakthrough: Distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship

We develop a perspective on technology entrepreneurship as involving agency that is distributed across different kinds of actors. Each actor becomes involved with a technology, and, in the process, generates inputs that result in the transformation of an emerging technological path. The steady accumulation of inputs to a technological path generates a momentum that enables and constrains the activities of distributed actors. In other words, agency is not only distributed, but it is embedded as well. We explicate this perspective through a comparative study of processes underlying the emergence of wind turbines in Denmark and in United States. Through our comparative study, we flesh out “bricolage” and “breakthrough” as contrasting approaches to the engagement of actors in shaping technological paths.

Path dependence and creation

The third lens employed in Invisible Management draws on the role of broader cultural and social forces in the construction of leadership. Chapter 6, for example, describes the executive recruitment process and demonstrates once again the role of social homophily in reproducing existing elite structures. Unlike previous research, however, which emphasizes the role of uncertainty in relying on human capital and high-status signals in making executive selection decisions, the authors emphasize the alternate mechanism of self-presentation and impression management, which is consistent with societal imagery of leadership. Chapters 7 and 8 examine leadership attribution and selection through the lens of gender relations by asking why women remain underrepresented in elite positions and positing a complex answer. Like previous gender scholars, the authors emphasize that understanding leadership requires understanding the essence of power relations in the broader society. Relying on intensive interviews, these chapters highlight that both mens attitudes and, to some extent, womens own-many of which are merely reflections of broader societal attitudes-keep many potential women leaders from seeking and/or obtaining leadership positions in organizations. In the realm of leadership research, Invisible Management is a breath of fresh air. Trait-based theories of leadership, which are really only academic versions of popular images of the man on horseback riding in to save the day, need serious reevaluation now that we must come to terms with the havoc that so many of the corporate heroes of the last decade have wrought. This book offers a set of ideas that can potentially begin to guide us out of this morass.

Path Dependence or Path Creation

We discuss the assumptions that underlie path dependence, as defined by Vergne and Durand, and then provide the outlines of an alternative perspective which we label as path creation. Path creation entertains a notion of agency that is distributed and emergent through relational processes that constitute phenomena. Viewed from this perspective, ‘initial conditions’ are not given, ‘contingencies’ are emergent contexts for action, ‘self-reinforcing mechanisms’ are strategically manipulated, and ‘lock-in’ is but a temporary stabilization of paths in-the-making. We develop these points using a narrative approach and highlight the theoretical and methodological implications of our perspective.

Path Creation: Co-creation of Heterogeneous Resources in the Emergence of the Danish Wind Turbine Cluster

This paper employs path creation as a lens to follow the emergence of the Danish wind turbine cluster. Supplier competencies, regulations, user preferences and a market for wind power did not pre-exist; all had to emerge in a tranformative manner involving multiple actors and artefacts. Competencies emerged through processes and mechanisms such as co-creation that implicated multiple learning processes. The process was not an orderly linear one as emergent contingencies influenced the learning processes. An implication is that public policy to catalyse clusters cannot be based on an assumption that linear learning dynamics will unfold.

Categorization by Association: Nuclear Technology and Emission Free Electricity

At different points in time, energy harnessed from nuclear technology for commercial purposes has been qualified as atoms for peace, too cheap to meter, unsafe, sustainable, and emission free. We explore how these associations – between nuclear technology (a category used in a descriptive way) and qualities such as emission free (a category used in an evaluative way) – are materially anchored, institutionally performed, socially relevant, and entrepreneurially negotiated. By considering all these factors, our analysis shows that it is possible to understand how and why categories and their meanings continue to change over time. We flesh out the implications of these observations and suggest avenues for future research.

Actors and Institutions: Editors' Introduction

Over the past two decades, neoinstitutional theory has challenged the dominant functionalist explanations of organizations and has become one of the most creative and promising new paradigms in the social sciences.

Only in Social Action

This article compares the neoinstitutional perspective to the business systems perspective and addresses the way in which they can be used for accounting for social action. Despite their important insights against methodological individualism and functionalism, they still have some weaknesses. This article integrates four conceptual elements—sense making and enactment, social context, ongoing social relations, and a temporality view on time—to develop a more adequate conceptualization of the role of institutional rules in shaping social action.This article compares the neoinstitutional perspective to the business systems perspective and addresses the way in which they can be used for accounting for social action. Despite their important insights against methodological individualism and functionalism, they still have some weaknesses. This article integrates four conceptual elements—sense making and enactment, social context, ongoing social relations, and a temporality view on time—to develop a more adequate conceptualization of the role of institutional rules in shaping social action.