Different perspectives for the analysis of Technological Innovation Systems

of novel technologies, they seek to understand what drives them and what hinders their development (Bergek et al., 2008; Markard et al., 2015). Technological innovation systems have been analyzed from different, albeit complementary perspectives. Some of these perspectives can be related to the core elements of a TIS (actors, networks and institutions) and how they interact and affect technology development and TIS performance, including the TIS functions. Two further perspectives, spatial and

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temporal, are rather cross-cutting in the sense that they can be applied to each of the core elements (also in combination) and the functions.

Taking an actor perspective, scholars have studied how different actor groups contribute to the functions of a TIS (Markard and Truffer, 2008). One of the key interests in this line of research is to reveal differences among actors both with regard to how they depend on the focal technology and how they contribute to TIS performance (Konrad et al., 2012). A related interest is on strategies for system building, i.e. how actors – alone or in networks – deliberately create collective resources and institutions that support the development of the focal technology (Kukk et al., 2015; Musiolik and Markard, 2011).

From an institutional perspective, TIS scholars have analyzed how institutions affect TIS development, e.g. how institutions and technology evolve over time (Martin and Coenen, 2015), how different institutional context shape technological and organizational variants of a technology (Wirth et al., 2013), or how institutional changes affect the legitimacy of novel technologies (Markard et al., 2016). The institutional perspective directs attention to the role of context(s) (Bergek et al., 2015) and how variations in context affect technology development (Wirth et al., 2013). It is also central to show how certain designs become dominant and how path-dependency emerges in technological systems (Carlsson, 1997; David, 1994).

Overlap exists with the spatial perspective (see below), when scholars ask the question how the formation of institutional structures relates to specific places (e.g. Dewald and Truffer, 2012; Martin and Coenen, 2015). With regard to theory building, the institutional perspective emphasizes the co-development of technology and institutional structures and the role of context(s), including variations across contexts, for technology development.

Taking a specific interest in innovation networks, TIS scholars have explored, for example, how networks for knowledge creation change over time and in spatial terms (Binz et al., 2014), or how they spread across different regions (Klitkou and Coenen, 2013). In a similar vein, network structures have also been used to explain the particularities of a TIS in a specific country and its performance (Lai et al., 2012). The network perspective shows overlaps with the spatial perspective and also with the actor

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perspective. In theoretical terms, the network perspective directs attention to TIS structure, i.e. to the relationships among TIS elements. Compared to the other perspectives, it is probably the least developed as of yet, but nonetheless not less promising.

A spatial analysis is interested in the location of TIS elements – especially in relation to each other, which is where the overlap with the network perspective lies. TIS scholars have analyzed regional performance differences in TIS functions (Dewald and Truffer, 2012), the internationalization of TIS (Binz et al., 2014) or the relationships and complementarities of technological innovation systems in different countries (Bento and Fontes, 2015; Wieczorek et al., 2015). It is argued, among others, that international relationships should receive more attention in TIS studies (Binz et al., 2014; Gosens et al., 2015), which has implications for choosing boundaries of analysis (Markard et al., 2015). Current practice to confine most TIS studies to national boundaries has been criticized as potentially myopic, which is why scholars should rather take a network perspective and track the network development over time to identify spatial levels a posteriori (Binz et al., 2014).

As a key methodological approach, TIS scholars taking a spatial perspective have used social network analysis, e.g. to identify regional clusters of innovation activity in a TIS (Binz et al., 2014; Martin and Coenen, 2015). In theoretical terms, the spatial perspective highlights that proximity matters (thus explaining regional clusters and positive effects from co-location) and that institutional contexts for TIS development vary across space.

Finally, TIS dynamics can also be analyzed from an explicitly temporal perspective. This perspective is interested in the temporal patterns of TIS development, the identification and differentiation of specific phases (Jacobsson and Bergek, 2004) or how TIS functions develop over time (Suurs and Hekkert, 2009). This perspective has been applied in most TIS studies (e.g. as analysts distinguish different phases of TIS development), although not with a very explicit analytical interests. From a theoretical point of view, the temporal perspective directs attention to emergent effects in TIS, including path-dependencies, and also raises questions about typical stages of TIS development, e.g. in the sense of a life cycle.

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Similar to the spatial perspective, the temporal perspective is often applied on top of (orthogonal to) one of the other perspectives (e.g. asking how institutional contexts change over time, Markard et al., 2016). Also spatial and temporal perspectives can be combined, e.g. when studying temporal patterns in the internationalization of TIS (Binz et al., 2014).

This comparison shows that each perspective comes with specific questions and highlights specific theoretical aspects of the dynamics of technology development. At the same time, due to the systemic nature of the TIS approach many of these issues are intertwined, which has two implications for analyzing the TIS spatial dynamics. First, spatial analysis as a cross-cutting perspective, needs to employ a framework to incorporate potential overlaps with other perspectives and show their dynamic interactions. Second, interplay of institutions at different scales in a network of heterogeneous actors over space and time creates a complex system with diverse spatial patterns that needs a powerful method to properly address this complexity and analyze patterns.