Detecting Social Innovation Agency; Methodological reflections on units of analysis in dispersed transformation processes

Abstract

Considering that it is important for the social innovation research field to confront its methodological challenges, this contribution addresses the challenge of choosing appropriate units of analysis. In processes of transformative social innovation, the agency is distributed and therefore fundamentally difficult to detect and ascribe. This contribution addresses the challenge to develop methodologies that are consistent with this relational ontology, critically evaluating the three main unit of analysis choices that guided an international comparison of 20 transnational SI networks and their local manifestations. Methodological lessons are drawn on the actors that SI can be ascribed to, on the transnational agency through which it spreads and on the relevant transformation contexts involved. This provides SI research with methodological tools to handle the elusiveness of SI agency, a methodological challenge that becomes particularly pressing in attempts towards systematic comparison of cases..