An Integrative Framework for Understanding the Innovation Ecosystem

In order to gain deeper understanding of how innovation contributes to economic prosperity, we offer an integrative framework, which consists of a theoretical model and a set of methodological guidelines. The theoretical model posits that diverse communities of people and organizations engage both the production and use of networks of innovations in an ecosystem. The methodological guidelines help researchers conduct the analysis of discourse about multiple innovations in multiple communities from multiple sources, exploiting the synergy between human and computational analyses. Taken together, the framework provides an integrative perspective that helps shift innovation research and policy making from the paradigm-drive, discipline-based orientation to a problem-driven, interdisciplinary orientation.