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Item The role of public policy in promoting technical innovations(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2007-05) Conrad, JobstThe purpose of this article is to demonstrate and to discuss on the basis of an indepth case study the range and limitations of public policy aiming at promoting the development of regional innovation networks and clusters. This is done first by denominating main criteria, potentials and problems of a public policy promoting regional clusters (section 1), second by describing the development of the network association InnoPlanta and its major framework conditions (sections 2 and 3), third by summarizing the actor constellation of the network and the innovation pattern and market perspectives of InnoPlanta's research projects (sections 4 and 5), fourth by then pointing out the structure and role of public promotion policy in this process (section 6), fifth by comparing promotion objectives with results achieved (section 7), and sixth by drawing some conclusions concerning successful promotion policy in the case investigated and in general (section 8). As shown in the case study, the role, success or failure of public policy promoting the development of regional innovation networks and clusters depend on its favourable interaction dynamics with the existing social and economic contextual conditions. Therefore, referring to the in-depth case study of Conrad (2005), on the one hand these framework conditions are sketched in somewhat more detail, and on the other hand the article does not focus on one specific theoretical question, but tries to combine various analytical perspectives to explain the role and success of public promotion policy in the case of InnoPlanta. Consequently, this article concentrates on explaining the role of the BMBF InnoRegio program, in particular, for the development of the regional innovation network InnoPlanta, and not on this type of public promotion policy per se.Item Science, Technology & Innovation Studies Vol. 3 (2007), No 1 (May)(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2007-05) Schulz-Schaeffer, Ingo; Werle, Raymund; Weyer, JohannesItem Producing difference in an age of biosociality(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2007-05) Lipphardt, Veronika; Niewöhner, JörgThis paper brings together thinking from the history of science, science and technology studies and social/cultural anthropology to better understand how human diversity is handled in everyday practices in science and beyond. Our aim is to take the social and historical contingency of practice as a starting point and to focus on the patterning of practice, which arises from the constraints of socio-material alignments and leads to the co-production of diversity. Under the headings of race and ethnicity, sorting practices with regards to human diversity have been at the centre of anthropological thinking and critique since the age of Enlightenment. Constructivist critique has insisted on understanding "race" as a social construct and warned of reifying differences of a socio-cultural making. This critique has so far not been particularly fruitful in dealing with human biological difference as produced in different everyday practices in science and beyond. Recently, molecular genetics have reinvigorated the interest to stratify human populations into subpopulations to improve drug development and targeting, to ascertain vulnerabilities and plasticity, to adjust nutritional intake or therapeutic strategies or to trace ethnic ancestries. We suggest that the shortcomings of constructivist critique in the face of these latest developments are due to its focus on theoretical concepts and self-descriptions rather than the practices and their implicit logics within and outside science proper. By employing Hacking's concepts of 'making up people' and 'looping', Rabinow's 'biosociality', as well as Callon's concept of 'translation', we hope to show the interactive dynamics of classification and response which take place at the interface between different knowledge practices. We trace translations through the life sciences into clinical practice and beyond into different social constellations, involving medical practice, made-up people and social bodies in order to show how human diversity is produced in practice. We put an emphasis on the different roles that biohistorical narratives, standardised packages and forms of resistance and appropriation play within these constellations.Item Integrating path dependency and path creation in a general understanding of path constitution(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2007-05) Meyer, Uli; Schubert, CorneliusPath dependency as it is described by Arthur and David portrays technological developments as historically embedded, emergent processes. In contrast, Garud and Karnøe's notion of path creation emphasises the role of strategic change and deliberate action for the development of new technologies. In this article, we integrate both concepts into a general understanding of path processes which accounts for emergent as well as deliberate modes of path constitution. In addition, we distinguish between three consecutive phases of technological path developments. Both conceptualisations are used to create an analytical grid against which empirical cases of path processes can be matched. Based on this general understanding, we further outline how concepts from science and technology studies and institutional theory can help to elaborate the role of deliberate action and emergence in the stabilisation of technological paths over time.Item Technology and (Post-)Sociality in the Financial Market(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2007-05) Langenohl, Andreas; Schmidt-Beck, KerstinThe article takes issue with recent influential work on the paradigmatic relevancy of technologically induced modes of communication and sociality on the financial markets. According to Karin Knorr Cetina and Urs Bruegger, the technological infrastructure of the global financial markets engenders novel forms of sociality and social integration: intersubjectivity with non-present others and (post)sociality with (imagined) objects. The article differentiates these hypotheses by way of confronting them with results from interviews conducted with financial market professionals such as asset managers and financial analysts. They reveal that financial professionals attribute the role of technology a varying meaning and engage in divergent technological practices depending on their market positionality: while, for instance, intraday traders report on an intimate and quasi-social relationship with the technologically institutionalized "object" of the market, equity analysts display a more distanced stance toward the market and attribute the technological nature of mass communication (especially the real-time circulation of information) paramount importance. In conclusion the paper calls for a nuanced and contextualized understanding of the impact of technology upon changing social relations.Item Editorial(Technische Universität Dortmund, 2007-05) Schulz-Schaeffer, Ingo; Werle, Raymund; Weyer, Johannes