Network dynamics in constellations of cultural differences: Relational distance in innovation processes in legal services and biotechnology

Abstract

The aims of this article are first to scrutinize the effects of cultural divergence within knowledge networks on innovation and second to explore how these relations change during the process. Using qualitative case-study data from innovation biographies in legal services and biotechnology research and development services the paper develops a phase model of innovation – induction, validation, mobilization and concretization – that allows synchronizing the longitudinal time-spatial data. It then identifies types of relations within knowledge networks that have been critical for the creation and unfolding of the core idea and positions them into the phase model. The notion “relational distance” is employed to specify what forms of cultural differences are enacted in each of these relations and what effects these differences have on the outcomes of the innovation processes. The proposed framework affords the in-depth interpretation of each type of relation, a lateral analysis of how different types of relations work together at specific stages of the innovation processes and a longitudinal dynamic analysis of how relations evolve during innovation processes.