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Entrepreneurship in Innovation Communities pp 69–81Cite as

Analytical Framework and Methodology

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Part of the book series: Contributions to Management Science ((MANAGEMENT SC.))

Abstract

This chapter merges the conceptual and theoretical insights that inform this book in order to operationalize the analytical framework, which is applied to explain how the institutional idiosyncrasies of innovation communities affect entrepreneurship in the field of desktop 3D printing. Additionally, I outline my methodological approach as well as the data sources my analysis draws on. In the context of my empirical investigation, I apply a triangulation that allows me the describe the evolution and change of the 3D printing field, delineate shared understandings on how this issue should be approached appropriately, and finally synthesize the actors’ practical responses to the dilemma of entrepreneurship.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Recent receptions of Swidler’s work exaggerate even these tendencies. Especially the framework of “cultural entrepreneurship” (Lounsbury and Glynn 2001), which describes the purposive efforts of actors to produce rationalizing accounts or stories in order “to shape the attention and perceptions of various audiences, justifying the group’s legitimacy and helping to coordinate its expansion to shape the attention” (Wry et al. 2011, p. 450), draws heavily on Swidler’s culture-as-a-toolkit-argument but widely misses her foundations in (institutional) theory.

  2. 2.

    While the current research on field-configuring events draws on temporally and spatially bounded moments that enable direct interaction among field members (Hardy and Maguire 2010; Schüssler et al. 2014; Schüßler et al. 2015), I consider also incidents like obtained milestones, external shocks, or legal/administrative happenings as potential triggers for discontinuities and change within the field. Of course, these events may also affect the established practices and understandings in connection with the issue of the field (see Hoffman 1999, p. 353).

  3. 3.

    Analytically applied, the semiotic chain analysis therefore always entails a normative bias that reproduces the cultural preferences that are prevalent in the particular context of research. Consequently, what empirically turns out as desirable representations of a certain cultural code in my own research embraces the innovation community’s points of view. However, this moral bias is of course leveled in the context of the conceptual and theoretical discussion of my findings.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technische Universität, Berlin, Germany

    Jan-Peter Ferdinand

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  1. Jan-Peter Ferdinand
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Ferdinand, JP. (2018). Analytical Framework and Methodology. In: Entrepreneurship in Innovation Communities. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66842-0_4

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