Social construction of innovation narratives: implications for management studies

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to understand innovation from social constructivist framework and an effort to theoretically map how innovation embodies social goals and power relationships. It examines how socio-cultural approaches can reveal deeper insights in understanding different facets of socio-technical change. We argue that the concept of innovation (at least as framed within a certain literature of innovation studies) is a social construction itself culturally and historically determined. We draw our theoretical discussions from social construction of technology and actor-network theory. The first part of the paper briefly introduces the concept of innovation, and its different perspectives. It also opens up debates about social constructionist approaches to understand innovation. The second part of the paper states the problem and highlights the limitations of the dominant management perspectives. The paper concludes setting a future research agenda for management scholars, which takes into account some of the lessons provided by the social constructivist framework.