عنوان

Emergent knowledge dynamics in innovation :

Number

TLets543147

Title Proper

Emergent knowledge dynamics in innovation :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Steinberg, Alexandra

Title Proper by Another Author

exploring e-business entrepreneurship after the dotcom crash

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2005

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Text preceding or following the note

2005

Text of Note

This thesis explores emergent knowledge dynamics in innovation in the context of ebusiness entrepreneurship. Based on a critique of the dialectic interpretation of knowledge dynamics, it forwards a perspective that stresses the creative force of emergence that disrupts existent meanings and produces new potentialities for innovation. It suggests ways of using such a perspective in policy-targeted research. The first part elaborates on the traditional uses of concepts of knowledge in explanations of entrepreneurial innovation and on the need to account for a dynamic perspective on emergent knowledge. The thesis employs work by Deleuze and Guattari as meta-theoretical vehicle to expand the conceptual potential of social representations theory beyond its traditional focus on a dialectic ontology of becoming. It highlights a dynamic which does not exclusively assume conceptual difference as the source of the novel and which allows for patterns of becoming other than the triadic continuity of dialectics. Together, this provides new possibilities for an understanding of knowledge dynamics taking into account both adaptive and creative dynamics of emergence. The empirical part combines thematic analysis of interviews and a focus group with Deleuzian analysis of participant observation to facilitate an exploration of emergent conditions for innovation in a particular milieu of e-business entrepreneurship. The exploration shows how changes in shared evaluative dimensions guided - and constrained - the creation of new concepts. Simultaneously, distinct assemblages arising from novel connections of affect and technology in networks created the conditions of fluidity and ambiguity required for new knowledge: in the aftermath of the dotcom crash, new concepts of network leadership and trust in business interaction were emerging. This study forwards new insights on the study of emergent knowledge dynamics as oscillating between rhizomic opening and dialectic closure. It is in the disruptive encounters between the two that new conditions for innovation can assemble.

BF Psychology

H Social Sciences (General)

HM Sociology

Steinberg, Alexandra

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y