The complexity of innovation: A relational turn

Recent contributions within the system of innovation approach are marked by an instrumentalism that views innovation as a predictable and standardized process that in most aspects counters theories and empirical observations stressing the multilevel, spontaneous and complex features of innovation. Informed by the relational turn within economic geography this paper develops an alternative analytical framework. We do this stepwise: first, by elaborating on how innovation was originally defined within the systems of innovation approach; second, by outlining a relational based analytical framework based on the concept of social fields; and, finally, by demonstrating how it has been applied.