Entrepreneurial learning and qualification

On Wednesday 3rd June 2009 I will be presenting a paper summarising my research on e-commerce entrepreneurship at the Quadrangular Conference at the University of Cambridge. The paper is entitled “The Qualification of E-Commerce Services: A Case Study of Entrepreneurial Learning in the Technological Economy.” As I’m approaching the end of the field work phase, this is an attempt at articulating some emerging findings and situating them in relation to relevant debates.

Forthcoming presentation at LSE

On Wednesday 22 April 2009, I will be speaking at the 5th Social Study of ICT Open Research Forum (SSIT-ORF), in Panel 2: “ICT Innovations and Organisations.” In my talk I will be reflecting on the relationship between ICT innovation and organising, by drawing on the case study of my doctoral research on the organising practices of small online retailers in the South of England. Using an actor-network theory approach, I will focus on describing how e-commerce enterprises are assembled out of e-commerce services, and how this process of assembly (and innovation) is inseparable from the market process of qualifying (Callon et al. 2002) these services. I will reflect on the role of ICT artefacts in these organising and qualifying processes, and on the basis of my preliminary findings (somewhat provocatively) I will argue against making a conceptual distinction between ICT innovation, organising practices, and market practices.

Reference:

Callon, M., C. Méadel, et al. (2002). “The Economy of Qualities.” Economy & Society 31(2): 194.

Talks at LSE, Bournemouth, and Cambridge

Just a quick announcement of my forthcoming talks in the next few weeks. On 10 February 2009 I’ll be giving my annual presentation at the IS554 research seminar at ISIG, Department of Management, LSE. The talk, entitled “Framing, Qualification, and Reflexivity: Reporting from the Field,” is an interim report about my field research. I will be drawing on economic sociology to describe the data I have so far collected on entrepreneurial learning in the online retail industry. Specifically I will be reflecting on the curious ‘double hermeneutic’ at work in my interpretation: Michel Callon et al.’s notions of framing and qualification and Daniel Beunza and David Stark’s notion of entrepreneurial reflexivity emerge as operative concepts that are apt not only for the characterisation of the empirical situation but also for the very nature of the research process itself.

Entrepreneurship and economic sociology at Goldsmiths

My head is still spinning thanks to a superb workshop/conference I attended last week: the Goldsmiths Winter Workshop in Economic Sociology that took place between 13-15 January 2009.  It was organised by David Stark and Daniel Beunza from Columbia, and Will Davis, Allan Day and Joe Deville from Goldsmiths. The organisers struck a unique balance between a variety of tensions that characterise the research world and set the stage for some highly stimulating contributions and discussions. (See photos of the event here.)

AC/DC and global innovation

On Wednesday 29 October I was listening to AC/DC and thinking about innovation. No, I’m not talking about the new album just released last week by the legendary Australian rock band. I was at the launch of the AC/DC model of innovation at NESTA in London. AC/DC stands for “Absorptive Capacity/Development Capacity,” and it forms the heart of a new innovation system model that is aimed at capturing the simultaneously local and global aspects of innovation. It is an interesting and sophisticated model that is decidedly geographic, in the sense that it measures various types of connectedness that are geographically specific. I haven’t had a chance to read and ‘absorb’ the whole report yet, but it certainly looks intriguing.

Wal-Mart: making things explicit

Last week I touched upon the notion of explicitation in relation to the current financial crisis. Wal-Mart’s announcement yesterday of its intention to make it more explicit how the products on its shelves originating from China have been produced appears to be yet another example of such explicitation. Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott admitted that in the past the retailer was approaching the sourcing of its products in China with some detachment: “We have traditionally purchased in a very transactional manner” (22 October 2008, FT.com). The priority was not the conditions under which a given product had been produced but the price of that product.

The end of supermarket supremacy?

Procter & Gamble’s tentative steps towards selling its products directly to consumers over the internet suggest the unfolding of an interesting new dynamic in the retail industry. While we have got accustomed to powerful retailers expanding into the e-commerce arena (such as Tesco), or the emergence of new online retailers altogether (think Amazon), the increasing number of FMCG and other manufacturers going direct may give these retailers something to think about. Apparently Wal-Mart is already busy hiring a strategy executive just to focus on this phenomenon. What are the implications of all this for supermarkets and consumers?

The Way of the Garbage Warrior

While flipping through the channels last night I accidentally stumbled upon Oliver Hodge’s documentary Garbage Warrior on More4 and I couldn’t help but watch the whole thing. It is an interesting film for a number of reasons but to me it was most of all a fascinating case study of innovation, in both the narrowest and broadest sense of the word. The film tells the story of architect Michael Reynolds and the experimental sustainable community he built over the last 30 years in Taos, New Mexico, mostly out of garbage. (Watch the trailer below for a summary of the storyline.)

Explicitation and the financial crisis

The sheer diversity of explanations circulating around as to the causes of the current financial crisis is simply bewildering, not to mention the disparate identities of possible culprits when it comes to apportioning blame. The opinions aired often say more about the identity and affiliation of the given commentator than about the nature of the calamity at hand. The silence of some key actors in this collective effort to really figure out what has just happened and who to blame is also conspicuous although not entirely surprising.

Recordings of WCRS 2008 Presentations

Thanks to Teppo Felin at orgtheory.net for posting the link to the audio recordings [MP3] of the 6th West Coast Research Symposium on Technology Entrepreneurship that took place on 5th and 6th September 2008 at Stanford University. A wide range of entrepreneurship-related topics have been discussed by leading scholars in the field, including innovation networks, dynamic capabilities, opportunity creation, corporate entrepreneurship and venture capital. Well worth the listen.