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Performing ambiguous policy : How innovation events simultaneously perform change and collaborative order

Andersson Cederholm, Erika LU orcid and Hall, Patrik (2020) In The Sociological Review 68(6). p.1403-1419
Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyse how innovation policy is staged and legitimised through the dramatised social process of an event. The context is taken from an annual event, Skåne Innovation Week, which is arranged by the regional innovation system in Skåne, Sweden. Innovation systems often organise similar events internationally, which appear to play a key role in performing inter-organisational collaboration between actors from the public sector, industry and research, as well as manifesting belief in the globalised imaginaries of innovation systems. Through the analytical lens of the event as a social drama, the article examines how the event – and thus, innovation policy – is represented in commemorative films and website... (More)
The aim of this article is to analyse how innovation policy is staged and legitimised through the dramatised social process of an event. The context is taken from an annual event, Skåne Innovation Week, which is arranged by the regional innovation system in Skåne, Sweden. Innovation systems often organise similar events internationally, which appear to play a key role in performing inter-organisational collaboration between actors from the public sector, industry and research, as well as manifesting belief in the globalised imaginaries of innovation systems. Through the analytical lens of the event as a social drama, the article examines how the event – and thus, innovation policy – is represented in commemorative films and website documents through which three meeting practices are identified: mingling and hanging out, scripted meeting models and spatial staging. The article argues that these meeting practices and their performed interactive social forms sustain the vagueness and ambiguity inherent in innovation policy, particularly between stability and change. The event can be viewed as a form of performative government that maintains a political order while simultaneously hailing its practices as transformative. (Less)
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
ambiguity, events, performative government, regional innovation system, social drama
in
The Sociological Review
volume
68
issue
6
pages
17 pages
publisher
SAGE Publications
external identifiers
  • scopus:85077169948
ISSN
0038-0261
DOI
10.1177/0038026119895219
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
355d81db-8c90-43dc-b133-bc37c7c71b74
date added to LUP
2019-11-27 09:00:58
date last changed
2022-12-23 19:03:50
@article{355d81db-8c90-43dc-b133-bc37c7c71b74,
  abstract     = {{The aim of this article is to analyse how innovation policy is staged and legitimised through the dramatised social process of an event. The context is taken from an annual event, Skåne Innovation Week, which is arranged by the regional innovation system in Skåne, Sweden. Innovation systems often organise similar events internationally, which appear to play a key role in performing inter-organisational collaboration between actors from the public sector, industry and research, as well as manifesting belief in the globalised imaginaries of innovation systems. Through the analytical lens of the event as a social drama, the article examines how the event – and thus, innovation policy – is represented in commemorative films and website documents through which three meeting practices are identified: mingling and hanging out, scripted meeting models and spatial staging. The article argues that these meeting practices and their performed interactive social forms sustain the vagueness and ambiguity inherent in innovation policy, particularly between stability and change. The event can be viewed as a form of performative government that maintains a political order while simultaneously hailing its practices as transformative.}},
  author       = {{Andersson Cederholm, Erika and Hall, Patrik}},
  issn         = {{0038-0261}},
  keywords     = {{ambiguity; events; performative government; regional innovation system; social drama}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{10}},
  number       = {{6}},
  pages        = {{1403--1419}},
  publisher    = {{SAGE Publications}},
  series       = {{The Sociological Review}},
  title        = {{Performing ambiguous policy : How innovation events simultaneously perform change and collaborative order}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038026119895219}},
  doi          = {{10.1177/0038026119895219}},
  volume       = {{68}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}