Final Report Summary - FRUITFUL INSTABILITY (Fruitful Instability: The Cultural Logic of Creative Practice in Israeli High-Technology Start-Ups)
This project is an ethnographic study of creative practice in the high-technology and information economy sector, primarily in Israel, a sector that has been exceptionally productive compared to similar sectors in other regions in the world. Based on a longitudinal and multi-sited ethnographic study in a number of institutional sites of routinized business innovation, the project’s goal is to provide a detailed account of some of the cultural and structural determinants of high-technology innovation.
Theoretically, the project advances insights into an emerging area of interest in organizational theory, namely an interest in flexible organizational models that are conducive to innovation. Additionally, the idea of routinized business innovation, which the project develops, provides an opportunity to rethink the culturally salient dichotomy between modern normative ideals of rationality and modern normative ideals of creativity. The project suggests that an ethnographic account of strategies of routinized business innovation developed by business innovation consultancy groups provides an opportunity to challenge this dichotomy. Beyond this theoretical level, the project is timely in light of the agreement among academics and policy-makers as to the increasing importance of high-technology products and expert knowledge as generators of wealth in the contemporary moment.
Since the beginning of the project, ethnographic research has been conducted in a number of institutional sites of business innovation in the high-technology sector and the creative industries. During this fieldwork data have been collected on the actual practices of business innovation consultants vis-à-vis specific innovation projects, as well as on attempts to automate and streamline creative and innovative business practices in the organizational sector.
The research has identified a number of strategies of routinized business innovation, which have been theorized in a number of articles and book chapters using semiotic anthropological theories, political economy, and strands of research from the sociology and anthropology of knowledge. The research has clarified the nuts and bolts of the ideation phase of number of strategies of routinized business innovation, and has demonstrated that these strategies effectively reconcile rationalization and creative practice. Some of the data collected during the research are still being analyzed and will form the basis for future publications.
The research will eventually culminate in a monograph on routinized business innovation, which is likely to inform the practices of business innovation consultants, entrepreneurs, and policy-makers, as well as anthropological theories of cultural creativity and innovation.
Theoretically, the project advances insights into an emerging area of interest in organizational theory, namely an interest in flexible organizational models that are conducive to innovation. Additionally, the idea of routinized business innovation, which the project develops, provides an opportunity to rethink the culturally salient dichotomy between modern normative ideals of rationality and modern normative ideals of creativity. The project suggests that an ethnographic account of strategies of routinized business innovation developed by business innovation consultancy groups provides an opportunity to challenge this dichotomy. Beyond this theoretical level, the project is timely in light of the agreement among academics and policy-makers as to the increasing importance of high-technology products and expert knowledge as generators of wealth in the contemporary moment.
Since the beginning of the project, ethnographic research has been conducted in a number of institutional sites of business innovation in the high-technology sector and the creative industries. During this fieldwork data have been collected on the actual practices of business innovation consultants vis-à-vis specific innovation projects, as well as on attempts to automate and streamline creative and innovative business practices in the organizational sector.
The research has identified a number of strategies of routinized business innovation, which have been theorized in a number of articles and book chapters using semiotic anthropological theories, political economy, and strands of research from the sociology and anthropology of knowledge. The research has clarified the nuts and bolts of the ideation phase of number of strategies of routinized business innovation, and has demonstrated that these strategies effectively reconcile rationalization and creative practice. Some of the data collected during the research are still being analyzed and will form the basis for future publications.
The research will eventually culminate in a monograph on routinized business innovation, which is likely to inform the practices of business innovation consultants, entrepreneurs, and policy-makers, as well as anthropological theories of cultural creativity and innovation.