The reconstruction of innovative studies  – selected mechanisms Cover Image

The reconstruction of innovative studies – selected mechanisms
The reconstruction of innovative studies – selected mechanisms

Author(s): Agnieszka Karpińska
Subject(s): Sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Gospodarki Euroregionalnej im. Alcide De Gasperi w Józefowie
Keywords: innovation; innovation study; hegemony; social constructionism; selective tradition; expertise involved

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is the reconstruction of innovation studies. The object of analysis will be selected knowledge forming mechanisms applied within this scientific area. There will be made an attempt to prove that the idea of innovation was used as the element of hegemonic strategy imposed by international organizations in order to maintain the existing rules of social reproduction. The methodological perspective adopted in the analysis is the constructivist model of cognition, among others, represented by A. Zybertowicz. According to it, the knowledge is determined by the circumstances and mechanisms of the social structures acting in the processes of converting interpretation into facts. Consequently, one is searching for the answer to a question: what role in this process play institutions of the power and money and their rhetorical devices. The research problem is analysed through the prism of two mechanisms: the motion of selective tradition and the strategy of expertise involved. Analysis of existing data and organizations’ reports, reveals that associates of the organizations, e.g. Ch. Freeman, constructed knowledge about the innovation on the foundation of ideological pre assumptions entered in their mission. Also the mechanism of selective tradition had no basis in the form of scientific research in the area of innovation studies, still it was applied due to the hegemonic rationality of the international actors. Therefore, in the field of innovation studies, the knowledge does not perform teleological function nor reach the essence of things, which in scientific cognition is the true, but allows to maintain the state of hegemony for prevailing classes. Paradoxically, innovation studies does not provide much information about innovativeness itself.

  • Issue Year: 34/2017
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 197-208
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: English