"This book brings together the work of a number of authors associated with Aston Business School, one of the UK's foremost institutions in terms of both teaching and research. Contributors illustrate the way in which innovation networks are formed and sustained in a variety of organisational settings: public sector, public-private collaboration, national policy level, the direct action movement as well as the more traditional focus on manufacturing firms. The strength of the network approach is that it encourages detailed analyses of the dyadic links which must be mobilised during the innovation process. At the same time, networks provide a framework for exploring the multiple sources and pluralistic patterns of communication typical of innovatory activity.

In contrast to much of the innovation network research undertaken in recent years, the focus of this book is as much on notions of 'network as method' as on 'network as phenomenon'."--Jacket.