Methods for studying innovation processes: Towards a complementarity between organizational and cognitive perspectives

Abstract

This paper describes two methods designed to study and diagnose innovation processes. The first one adopts a systems perspective and focuses on information flows and decision-making during a project, whereas the second one privileges a cognitive approach and is aimed at highlighting actors' representations of innovation processes and new products. A comparison of the research results obtained in different industrial firms using these two methods introduces a discussion of the complementarity of both perspectives. These observations lead to an assessment of the collective learning mechanisms initiated during the field studies.