An actor-centric bottom-up view of institutions: Combinatorial knowledge dynamics through the eyes of institutional entrepreneurs and institutional navigators

Abstract

This paper argues that lack of focus on agency, intention, and interest is a weakness in regional innovation studies and studies focusing on knowledge dynamics. There is a need to systematically anchor a role for agency in institutionally oriented regional innovation studies, and thus to reach beyond snapshots of top-down institutions, and to produce a more nuanced view on institutions bottom up. To elaborate the conceptual link between institutions and combinatorial knowledge dynamics, this paper discusses two intertwined theoretical lenses, and proposes a conceptual framework for a study of institutions bottom-up. First, the basic tenets of institutions are discussed; second, a conceptual distinction between cumulative and combinatorial knowledge dynamics is introduced; and, third, a conceptual framework to study institutions bottom-up to complement top-down oriented studies is proposed. The main scientific motivation here is to open a bottom-up view on institutions by linking them to the combinatorial knowledge dynamics approach by using agency as an intermediating framework.