Gernot Grabher
Biographic Data
| ID | 200758 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gernot Grabher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gernot |
| FAMILY NAME | Grabher |
| SIGNATURE | GRABHER G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bonn |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2911-9254 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 859 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Selective inclusion: Civil society involvement in the smart city ecology of Amsterdam
Although research on smart cities increasingly acknowledges the involvement of civil society actors, most studies fall short when it comes to clarifying the specific modalities of civil society involvement. By probing into the smart city ecology that has developed around the Amsterdam Smart City-Foundation, we explore not only the extent to which the civil society is part of a smart city ecology but also what role civil society actors hold within…
Uber-production: From global networks to digital platforms
Uber and Airbnb have advanced into emblematic cases in debates in which the new digital capitalism is framed in terms of the so-called sharing economy. While this strand of inquiry has produced a wealth of insights into the workings and impacts of peer-to-peer platforms, the digital transformation of business-to-business interactions has so far attracted less attention. The present Exchange confronts this challenge by juxtaposing platform concept…
From being there to being aware: Confronting geographical and sociological imaginations of copresence
In economic geography, the notion of copresence has been at the very center of the research agenda for decades. The elaboration of the benefits of colocation and physical proximity was (and still is) a chief aim of the disciplinary project to demonstrate that "geography matters". The geographical concern with colocation, proximity and distance, in fact, resonates with the sociological discourse on copresence. And yet, the relationship between cop…
Marginality as strategy: Leveraging peripherality for creativity
This is an account on peripherality, dissociation, and outsiders. It is, however, not a story about a marginal backwater region whose fate is sealed by geography and history; and it does not resonate with the standard narrative of regional suffering imposed by a lack of centrality. In this account, peripherality does not feature as destiny, but as the result of a deliberate choice to shield creativity and dissenting ideas from the mimetic pressur…
Projects, people, professions: Trajectories of learning through a mega-event (the London 2012 case)
Coping with a Self-Induced Shock: The Heterarchic Organization of the London Olympic Games 2012
This paper starts from the assumption of a structural analogy between mega-events and large-scale disasters. Both imply forceful interruptions of everyday routines, and both involve imperatives for imminent action. Similar to the immovable deadline of an opening ceremony, a looming natural disaster triggers a complex set of precautions and preparations to cope with the inescapable forthcoming shock. In the case of mega-events, of course, this sho…
Distance as asset? Knowledge collaboration in hybrid virtual communities
Journal Article Distance as asset? Knowledge collaboration in hybrid virtual communities Get access Gernot Grabher, Gernot Grabher † **Urban and Regional Economic Studies, School of Urban Planning, HafenCity University Hamburg, Winterhuder Weg 31, 22085 Hamburg, Germany †Corresponding author: Gernot Grabher. email Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Oliver Ibert Oliver Ibert ****Leibniz-Institute for Regional …
Yet Another Turn? The Evolutionary Project in Economic Geography
What does the economic in economic geography stand for? For much of the 1990s up to the more recent past, answers to this pertinent question frequently referred to the embeddedness-network paradigm of the new economic sociology. At the same time, economic geography more and more drew inspiration, metaphors, and practices from an increasingly diverse range of schools. In terms of the disciplinary orientation, economic geography, on the one hand, r…
Frequently Asked Questions
What's this got to do with social geography
The Neglected King: The Customer in the New Knowledge Ecology of Innovation
Despite the universal mantra that "the customer is king," the role of the customer has so far seemed to have been confined to a passive recipient of products. Recently, however, this traditional perception has been challenged. On the one hand, users are increasingly appreciated as reflexive actors who are actively involved in the evaluation, modif ication, and configuration of products. On the other hand, beyond the established repertoire to acce…
Introduction to paradoxes of creativity: Managerial and organizational challenges in the cultural economy
This special issue explores the paradoxes caused by the challenge of managing and organizing creativity in the cultural economy. Conventional views of the individual creative artist are replaced by a view of creativity as a social process embedded within organizational and institutional contexts. The cultural economy is broadly defined in terms of breadth of industries included and depth elements of the cultural production chain. The paper next e…
Trading routes, bypasses, and risky intersections: Mapping the travels of `networks' between economic sociology and economic geography
In economic geography the notion of the network has come to play a critical role in a range of debates. Yet networks are rarely construed in an explicit fashion. They are, rather, assumed as some sort of more enduring social relations. This paper seeks to foreground these implicit assumptions - and their limitations - by tracing the selective engagement of economic geography with network approaches in economic sociology. The perception of network…
Bad company? The ambiguity of personal knowledge networks
Recent debates on learning have shifted the analytical focus from formal organizational arrangements to informal personal ties. Personal knowledge networks, though, mostly are perceived as homogenous, cohesive, and local personal ties. Moreover, a functionalist tone seems to prevail in accounts in which personal knowledge networks are seen to compensate the shortcomings of the formal organization. This paper sets out to expand the dominant constr…
Temporary Architectures of Learning: Knowledge Governance in Project Ecologies
This paper is motivated by the intention to contribute to a contextual understanding of projects. More specifically, the analysis starts from the assumption that essential processes of creating and sedimenting knowledge accrue at the interface between projects and the organizations, communities, and networks in and through which projects operate. By adopting such a contextual perspective, the chief aim of the present study is to unfold a conceptu…
Learning in Projects, Remembering in Networks: Communality, Sociality, and Connectivity in Project Ecologies
This paper seeks to contrast two opposing logics of project-based learning. Accumulation and modularization of knowledge denote the key imperatives of a learning logic that is exemplified by the software ecology in Munich. Learning is geared towards moving from ‘one-off’ to repeatable solutions. This cumulative logic is juxtaposed with a discontinuous learning regime that is driven by the maxims of originality and creativity. ‘Learning by switchi…
The markets are back
Fuzzy Concepts, Scanty Evidence, Policy Distance? Debating Ann Markusen' s Assessment of Critical Regional Studies
This article does not have an abstract
Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context
(2002). Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context. Regional Studies: Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 205-214
The Project Ecology of Advertising: Tasks, Talents and Teams
In economic geographic analysis, the 'firm' usually is assumed, at least implicitly, as a coherent and unitary economic actor. More recently, however, the integrity of the firm as the basic analytical unit has been undercut by organizational practices which are built instead around 'projects'. By taking up this theoretical challenge, this paper ventures an empirical investigation in which the project features as the central unit of economic actio…
Fragile Sector, Robust Practice: Project Ecologies in New Media
Ecologies of Creativity: The Village, the Group, and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry
In the 1980s, the hegemony of the large US advertising networks has been challenged by a new breed of London-based agencies who pioneered what is known in the trade as 'second wave'. On the one hand, second wave implied the emancipation of Soho from an 'outpost of Madison Avenue' to the 'advertising village' on the basis of momentous product and process innovations. On the other hand, a few London agencies rose to global top positions on the cres…
Locating Economic Action: Projects, Networks, Localities, Institutions
Restructuring Networks in Post-Socialism: Legacies, Linkages and Localities
This books is about change in Central and Eastern Europe, and how we think about social and economic change more generally. In contrast to the dominant 'transition framework' that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from, the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this book examines the way economic and social actors in the post-socialist setting are restructuring organi…
Organizing Diversity: Evolutionary Theory, Network Analysis and Postsocialism
GRABHER G. and STARK D. (1997) Organizing diversity: evolutionary theory, network analysis and postsocialism, Reg. Studies 31, 533-544. In contrast to the dominant transition framework that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this paper examines the innovative character, born of necessity, in which actors in the postsociali…
Restructuring Networks in Post-Socialism
This book is about change in Central and Eastern Europe, and social and economic change more generally. In contrast to the dominant ‘transition framework’ that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from, the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this book examines the innovative character, born of necessity, in which actors in the post-socialist setting are restructuring …
The Project Ecology of Advertising: Tasks, Talents and Teams
In economic geographic analysis, the 'firm' usually is assumed, at least implicitly, as a coherent and unitary economic actor. More recently, however, the integrity of the firm as the basic analytical unit has been undercut by organizational practices which are built instead around 'projects'. By taking up this theoretical challenge, this paper ventures an empirical investigation in which the project features as the central unit of economic actio…
Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context
(2002). Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context. Regional Studies: Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 205-214
The Embedded Firm: On the Socioeconomics of Industrial Networks
Organizing Diversity: Evolutionary Theory, Network Analysis and Postsocialism
GRABHER G. and STARK D. (1997) Organizing diversity: evolutionary theory, network analysis and postsocialism, Reg. Studies 31, 533-544. In contrast to the dominant transition framework that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this paper examines the innovative character, born of necessity, in which actors in the postsociali…
Learning in Projects, Remembering in Networks: Communality, Sociality, and Connectivity in Project Ecologies
This paper seeks to contrast two opposing logics of project-based learning. Accumulation and modularization of knowledge denote the key imperatives of a learning logic that is exemplified by the software ecology in Munich. Learning is geared towards moving from ‘one-off’ to repeatable solutions. This cumulative logic is juxtaposed with a discontinuous learning regime that is driven by the maxims of originality and creativity. ‘Learning by switchi…
Ecologies of Creativity: The Village, the Group, and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry
In the 1980s, the hegemony of the large US advertising networks has been challenged by a new breed of London-based agencies who pioneered what is known in the trade as 'second wave'. On the one hand, second wave implied the emancipation of Soho from an 'outpost of Madison Avenue' to the 'advertising village' on the basis of momentous product and process innovations. On the other hand, a few London agencies rose to global top positions on the cres…
Introduction to paradoxes of creativity: Managerial and organizational challenges in the cultural economy
This special issue explores the paradoxes caused by the challenge of managing and organizing creativity in the cultural economy. Conventional views of the individual creative artist are replaced by a view of creativity as a social process embedded within organizational and institutional contexts. The cultural economy is broadly defined in terms of breadth of industries included and depth elements of the cultural production chain. The paper next e…
Bad company? The ambiguity of personal knowledge networks
Recent debates on learning have shifted the analytical focus from formal organizational arrangements to informal personal ties. Personal knowledge networks, though, mostly are perceived as homogenous, cohesive, and local personal ties. Moreover, a functionalist tone seems to prevail in accounts in which personal knowledge networks are seen to compensate the shortcomings of the formal organization. This paper sets out to expand the dominant constr…
The Neglected King: The Customer in the New Knowledge Ecology of Innovation
Despite the universal mantra that "the customer is king," the role of the customer has so far seemed to have been confined to a passive recipient of products. Recently, however, this traditional perception has been challenged. On the one hand, users are increasingly appreciated as reflexive actors who are actively involved in the evaluation, modif ication, and configuration of products. On the other hand, beyond the established repertoire to acce…
Distance as asset? Knowledge collaboration in hybrid virtual communities
Journal Article Distance as asset? Knowledge collaboration in hybrid virtual communities Get access Gernot Grabher, Gernot Grabher † **Urban and Regional Economic Studies, School of Urban Planning, HafenCity University Hamburg, Winterhuder Weg 31, 22085 Hamburg, Germany †Corresponding author: Gernot Grabher. email Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Oliver Ibert Oliver Ibert ****Leibniz-Institute for Regional …
Uber-production: From global networks to digital platforms
Uber and Airbnb have advanced into emblematic cases in debates in which the new digital capitalism is framed in terms of the so-called sharing economy. While this strand of inquiry has produced a wealth of insights into the workings and impacts of peer-to-peer platforms, the digital transformation of business-to-business interactions has so far attracted less attention. The present Exchange confronts this challenge by juxtaposing platform concept…
Fragile Sector, Robust Practice: Project Ecologies in New Media
From being there to being aware: Confronting geographical and sociological imaginations of copresence
In economic geography, the notion of copresence has been at the very center of the research agenda for decades. The elaboration of the benefits of colocation and physical proximity was (and still is) a chief aim of the disciplinary project to demonstrate that "geography matters". The geographical concern with colocation, proximity and distance, in fact, resonates with the sociological discourse on copresence. And yet, the relationship between cop…
Yet Another Turn? The Evolutionary Project in Economic Geography
What does the economic in economic geography stand for? For much of the 1990s up to the more recent past, answers to this pertinent question frequently referred to the embeddedness-network paradigm of the new economic sociology. At the same time, economic geography more and more drew inspiration, metaphors, and practices from an increasingly diverse range of schools. In terms of the disciplinary orientation, economic geography, on the one hand, r…
Marginality as strategy: Leveraging peripherality for creativity
This is an account on peripherality, dissociation, and outsiders. It is, however, not a story about a marginal backwater region whose fate is sealed by geography and history; and it does not resonate with the standard narrative of regional suffering imposed by a lack of centrality. In this account, peripherality does not feature as destiny, but as the result of a deliberate choice to shield creativity and dissenting ideas from the mimetic pressur…
Projects, people, professions: Trajectories of learning through a mega-event (the London 2012 case)
Locating Economic Action: Projects, Networks, Localities, Institutions
Coping with a Self-Induced Shock: The Heterarchic Organization of the London Olympic Games 2012
This paper starts from the assumption of a structural analogy between mega-events and large-scale disasters. Both imply forceful interruptions of everyday routines, and both involve imperatives for imminent action. Similar to the immovable deadline of an opening ceremony, a looming natural disaster triggers a complex set of precautions and preparations to cope with the inescapable forthcoming shock. In the case of mega-events, of course, this sho…
The markets are back
Fuzzy Concepts, Scanty Evidence, Policy Distance? Debating Ann Markusen' s Assessment of Critical Regional Studies
This article does not have an abstract
Selective inclusion: Civil society involvement in the smart city ecology of Amsterdam
Although research on smart cities increasingly acknowledges the involvement of civil society actors, most studies fall short when it comes to clarifying the specific modalities of civil society involvement. By probing into the smart city ecology that has developed around the Amsterdam Smart City-Foundation, we explore not only the extent to which the civil society is part of a smart city ecology but also what role civil society actors hold within…
The Embedded Firm: On the Socioeconomics of Industrial Networks
The Disembedded Regional Economy: The Transformation of East German Industrial Complexes into Western Enclaves
Years after the events of autumn 1989, it appears that only ‘half a revolution’ took place in eastern Germany. Although the ‘revolutionary subjects’ of 1989 triggered the implosion of the old tired-out system, they played hardly any role in the creation of the new. Moreover, the revolutionary developments almost completely lacked innovative, future-oriented ideas (Habermas 1990: 181). In this vacuum, instead of the development of new social visio…
Restructuring Networks in Post-Socialism
This book is about change in Central and Eastern Europe, and social and economic change more generally. In contrast to the dominant ‘transition framework’ that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from, the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this book examines the innovative character, born of necessity, in which actors in the post-socialist setting are restructuring …
The Social and Cultural Embeddedness of Entrepreneurs in Eastern Germany
This chapter starts by outlining the legacy of entrepreneurship and self-entrepreneurship in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The chapter examines methods of privatization and the structure of ownership in eastern Germany since the regime shift of November 1989. The second section looks into the various aspects of the social and cultural embeddedness of new entrepreneurships in eastern Germany, such as the different group origins, and…
Restructuring Networks in Post-Socialism: Legacies, Linkages and Localities
This books is about change in Central and Eastern Europe, and how we think about social and economic change more generally. In contrast to the dominant 'transition framework' that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from, the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this book examines the way economic and social actors in the post-socialist setting are restructuring organi…
Organizing Diversity: Evolutionary Theory, Network Analysis and Postsocialism
GRABHER G. and STARK D. (1997) Organizing diversity: evolutionary theory, network analysis and postsocialism, Reg. Studies 31, 533-544. In contrast to the dominant transition framework that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to, or depart from the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this paper examines the innovative character, born of necessity, in which actors in the postsociali…
Ecologies of Creativity: The Village, the Group, and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry
In the 1980s, the hegemony of the large US advertising networks has been challenged by a new breed of London-based agencies who pioneered what is known in the trade as 'second wave'. On the one hand, second wave implied the emancipation of Soho from an 'outpost of Madison Avenue' to the 'advertising village' on the basis of momentous product and process innovations. On the other hand, a few London agencies rose to global top positions on the cres…
Locating Economic Action: Projects, Networks, Localities, Institutions
Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context
(2002). Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context. Regional Studies: Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 205-214
The Project Ecology of Advertising: Tasks, Talents and Teams
In economic geographic analysis, the 'firm' usually is assumed, at least implicitly, as a coherent and unitary economic actor. More recently, however, the integrity of the firm as the basic analytical unit has been undercut by organizational practices which are built instead around 'projects'. By taking up this theoretical challenge, this paper ventures an empirical investigation in which the project features as the central unit of economic actio…
Fragile Sector, Robust Practice: Project Ecologies in New Media
Fuzzy Concepts, Scanty Evidence, Policy Distance? Debating Ann Markusen' s Assessment of Critical Regional Studies
This article does not have an abstract
Temporary Architectures of Learning: Knowledge Governance in Project Ecologies
This paper is motivated by the intention to contribute to a contextual understanding of projects. More specifically, the analysis starts from the assumption that essential processes of creating and sedimenting knowledge accrue at the interface between projects and the organizations, communities, and networks in and through which projects operate. By adopting such a contextual perspective, the chief aim of the present study is to unfold a conceptu…
Learning in Projects, Remembering in Networks: Communality, Sociality, and Connectivity in Project Ecologies
This paper seeks to contrast two opposing logics of project-based learning. Accumulation and modularization of knowledge denote the key imperatives of a learning logic that is exemplified by the software ecology in Munich. Learning is geared towards moving from ‘one-off’ to repeatable solutions. This cumulative logic is juxtaposed with a discontinuous learning regime that is driven by the maxims of originality and creativity. ‘Learning by switchi…
The markets are back
Bad company? The ambiguity of personal knowledge networks
Recent debates on learning have shifted the analytical focus from formal organizational arrangements to informal personal ties. Personal knowledge networks, though, mostly are perceived as homogenous, cohesive, and local personal ties. Moreover, a functionalist tone seems to prevail in accounts in which personal knowledge networks are seen to compensate the shortcomings of the formal organization. This paper sets out to expand the dominant constr…
Trading routes, bypasses, and risky intersections: Mapping the travels of `networks' between economic sociology and economic geography
In economic geography the notion of the network has come to play a critical role in a range of debates. Yet networks are rarely construed in an explicit fashion. They are, rather, assumed as some sort of more enduring social relations. This paper seeks to foreground these implicit assumptions - and their limitations - by tracing the selective engagement of economic geography with network approaches in economic sociology. The perception of network…
Introduction to paradoxes of creativity: Managerial and organizational challenges in the cultural economy
This special issue explores the paradoxes caused by the challenge of managing and organizing creativity in the cultural economy. Conventional views of the individual creative artist are replaced by a view of creativity as a social process embedded within organizational and institutional contexts. The cultural economy is broadly defined in terms of breadth of industries included and depth elements of the cultural production chain. The paper next e…
The Neglected King: The Customer in the New Knowledge Ecology of Innovation
Despite the universal mantra that "the customer is king," the role of the customer has so far seemed to have been confined to a passive recipient of products. Recently, however, this traditional perception has been challenged. On the one hand, users are increasingly appreciated as reflexive actors who are actively involved in the evaluation, modif ication, and configuration of products. On the other hand, beyond the established repertoire to acce…
Yet Another Turn? The Evolutionary Project in Economic Geography
What does the economic in economic geography stand for? For much of the 1990s up to the more recent past, answers to this pertinent question frequently referred to the embeddedness-network paradigm of the new economic sociology. At the same time, economic geography more and more drew inspiration, metaphors, and practices from an increasingly diverse range of schools. In terms of the disciplinary orientation, economic geography, on the one hand, r…
Frequently Asked Questions
What's this got to do with social geography
Distance as asset? Knowledge collaboration in hybrid virtual communities
Journal Article Distance as asset? Knowledge collaboration in hybrid virtual communities Get access Gernot Grabher, Gernot Grabher † **Urban and Regional Economic Studies, School of Urban Planning, HafenCity University Hamburg, Winterhuder Weg 31, 22085 Hamburg, Germany †Corresponding author: Gernot Grabher. email Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Oliver Ibert Oliver Ibert ****Leibniz-Institute for Regional …
Coping with a Self-Induced Shock: The Heterarchic Organization of the London Olympic Games 2012
This paper starts from the assumption of a structural analogy between mega-events and large-scale disasters. Both imply forceful interruptions of everyday routines, and both involve imperatives for imminent action. Similar to the immovable deadline of an opening ceremony, a looming natural disaster triggers a complex set of precautions and preparations to cope with the inescapable forthcoming shock. In the case of mega-events, of course, this sho…
Projects, people, professions: Trajectories of learning through a mega-event (the London 2012 case)
From being there to being aware: Confronting geographical and sociological imaginations of copresence
In economic geography, the notion of copresence has been at the very center of the research agenda for decades. The elaboration of the benefits of colocation and physical proximity was (and still is) a chief aim of the disciplinary project to demonstrate that "geography matters". The geographical concern with colocation, proximity and distance, in fact, resonates with the sociological discourse on copresence. And yet, the relationship between cop…
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (15 works) · Economics (10 works) · Business (9 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Geography (7 works) · Knowledge management (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Innovation and Knowledge Management (6 works)