The socio-technical networks of technology users in New Zealand

Abstract

Our approach to Technology Users’ Innovation (TUI) builds on studies that analyse inventors/innovators within socio-technical networks (Grabher, Ibert, & Flohr, 2008; Ohly, Kase, & Skerlavaj, 2010; von Hippel, 1988). We argue that inventors selectively participate in the socio-technical networks relevant to their particular efforts at innovation. We further argue that such selective involvement in financial capital, government support, IP and so on can be measured, with membership scored according to criteria emerging from both theory and the substantive knowledge and understanding accumulated from our case studies. Examining the networks in which these innovative technology users operate, and how these networks influence the processes by which an inventor succeeds or fails, can provide much needed empirical evidence about innovation success and failure at a time when greater understanding of innovation is vital to economic development.