Creating and Maintaining Innovative Space — A Framework for Unraveling the Complexities of Entrepreneurial Systems

Abstract

This article proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing, designing, and managing innovative institutional space. Innovative spaces generate macro-level, emergent outcomes. A fundamental challenge of the administrative and managerial sciences is to promulgate, adopt and enforce rules relevant and appropriate to specific goal-oriented spaces, while fostering spatial conditions that nurture the emergent, entrepreneurial properties of complex systems. Emphasizing the revelations of complexity theory, this article argues that differentiation and integration are essential components of an adaptive, progressive space, and that administrative and managerial rules not only define the parameters of space in question, but also influence the innovative, progressive nature of the space. The proposed theoretical framework suggests a two-part analytical process germane to the creation and maintenance of innovative space consisting of 1) the identification and comprehension of the space to be administered or managed, and 2) the identification and analysis of relevant rules (existing or proposed) that positively or negatively impact the emergent properties of such space.