Cel
To assess the role of communication in environmentally innovative companies in different sectoral and national contexts and in particular to investigate communication as a key interface in the innovation process. The intention is to develop guidelines to facilitate the transfer of best communication practice in environmental innovation between companies and across national boundaries.
The project combines 'network analysis' from research on innovation management with 'discourse analysis' based on linguistic research. It is based upon a sample of environmentally innovative companies in the UK and Germany (10 per country) from three sectors : the chemicals, the consumer goods and the retail and distribution industries. All companies selected have recently introduced a significant innovation in their technology or organisation with beneficial environmental consequences.
The project has the following components :
i) for each company this key environmental innovation is focused on and analysed as a network of internal and external relantionships based on cognitive and other transactions. Information is gathered on the technical, commercial and managerial dimensions of the innovation process and the forms of environmentally oriented communication expressed within it. The texts are identified related to specific linkages in the innovation network and contextual information on the role of these linkages obtained. This information is gathered from documentary and verbal sources.
ii) the texts under examination are analyzed as elements of situated discourse drawing upon the 'language as action' approach. The speech acts expressed in the texts are identified and there implementation analysed in relation to their organisational, sectoral and national setting. The intentions perceptions and organisational interfaces in the innovation process are examined through further interviews, following the text based discourse analysis ;
The results of the research allow key elements of similarity and difference in the role of communication in the environmental innovation process to be identified and the implications for the transfer of best practice between organisations, sectors and nations are examined.
Dziedzina nauki
Zaproszenie do składania wniosków
Data not availableSystem finansowania
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsKoordynator
B4 7ET Birmingham
Zjednoczone Królestwo