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Petersburg and the North-West).The formation of rules for state support for innovations at the regional level wasinvestigated through a case study strategy — a detailed and multidimensional study ofspecific empirical cases29. We analyzed two state business incubators that emerged in theNovosibirsk region and St. Petersburg correspondingly. Earlier we noted that we focuson the process of emerging and fixing of rules and analyze it at the micro level.
Therefore,we consider it is especially important to analyze the history of incubators in as much detailas possible. This explains the choice of the case study strategy.29Steinberg I., Shanin T., Kovalev E., Levinson A. Qualitative Methods. Field Sociological Study. SPb.:Aleteya, 2009. 352 p. (in Russian).15Methods of data gathering. Within the framework of case study, empirical datawas collected by the following methods: interviewing using an approximate thematicguide, participant observation, analysis of the media and documents, including officialdocuments regulating the activity of the selected business incubators.It took us one month (March 2012) to carry out participant observation for theNovosibirsk case as a part of the collecting of biographical interviews with technologicalentrepreneurs30.
The obtained data was supplemented by 27 semi-structured interviewstaken during the same project. The participated groups of informants were as following:1) employees of the technopark and business incubator (2 interviews); 2) local authorities(1 interview); 3) regional experts involved in the support and development of innovation(5 interviews); members of local technological entrepreneurship community, includingthose who are affiliated with the technopark, business incubator and technologicalentrepreneurship business associations (19 interviews).
During the data collection, weused snowball sampling for searching and selecting informants. The bias towards thebusiness community can be explained by the fact that the technological entrepreneurs andtheir companies simultaneously occupy several roles in most cases. For example, the rolesmay involve: the technopark’s resident, co-investor, the member of the supervisory boardand the business incubator’s expert council member, mentor of resident companies. Inaddition, they had the opportunity to freely share facts and stories about creating abusiness incubator.
To balance that dominance, the data from interviews wassupplemented with data from media and official documents, demonstrating theperspectives of authorities and incubator top management.It took us a year (October 2010 − October 2011) to carry out participant observationin the St. Petersburg incubator. During this time the author had a part-time job (threetimes a week) in one of the companies-residents of the incubator.The obtained data was supplemented by 13 semi-structured interviews. Theparticipated groups of informants are as following: 1) employees of the technopark and30For the project of the European University at St. Petersburg "Self-fashioning practices of successfultechnological entrepreneurs and their influence on the efficiency of high tech companies: the cases ofRussia, Finland, South Korea and Taiwan". The project was run with the support of RUSNANO. Theauthor of the text participated in the project as a researcher analyzing two regional cases.16business incubator (5 interviews); 2) residents of the business incubator, participants ofspecial competitions organized by the incubator (5 interviews); 3) experts involved in theprofessional community and can give an independent assessment of the businessincubator work (3 interviews).
During the data collection, we used snowball sampling forsearching and selecting informants as well31.The period of analysis covers the time period from 2005 to 2012. In this timeorganizational structure of the selected business incubators was developing, and the mostactive phase of the state support for innovation and technological entrepreneurship wasobserved. The main field data was collected during 2010-2012. The area of the field studycovers St.
Petersburg and the Novosibirsk Region.Methods of data analysis. From what was said earlier, it follows that the studyinvolved several units of analysis: an interview, a document or publication, and a case ofsocial interaction between various participants of the institutionalization process (forparticipant observation).
The main unit of analysis in the study was an interview.Despite the fact that the interviews for the research were conducted for variousstudies, the analysis algorithm described below allowed us to obtain comparable blocksof information. It consisted of the following steps:1) A guide for the current research question was developed. 2) The thematicsegmentation of the collected interviews data was conducted according to the questionsof the thematic guide.
It helped to identify the blocks of interviews that can be fitted tothis study. 3) A priori coding32 was applied to the analysis of the selected blocks. 4) Theselected interview blocks were analyzed using the “Membership CategorizationDevice”33. It was used because most often the informants talked about their experience of31One part of the interview was conducted as part of the Master's study "Institutional Barriers toTechnological Innovation", another part — for the project of the European University at St. Petersburg"Self-fashioning practices of successful technological entrepreneurs and their influence on the efficiencyof high tech companies: the cases of Russia, Finland, South Korea and Taiwan", and one more —specifically for this study.32Miles M. B., Huberman A.
M. Qualitative Data Analysis: A Sourcebook of New Methods. California;SAGE publications Inc. 1984.33Temkina A., Zdravomyslova E. Membership Categorization Device: The construction of genderidentity in sexual field // Russian Gender Order: Sociological Approach. Temkina A., Zdravomyslova E.(eds.) SPb: EUSPb, 2007. P.
250–264 (in Russian).17participating in the work of the technopark or business incubator describing theirinteraction with various groups and organizations. At the same time, they gave theseinteractions a certain meaning. Summarizing the different points of view and interpretingthe meanings, we tried to reconstruct the picture of the institutionalization.Justification for the choice of cases. The choice of cases in this study wasdetermined by several parameters:• The purpose of the research.
We aimed to analyze the process of creating andsecuring the rules for supporting innovations.• The necessity to consider the process of institutionalization on the example ofsuccessful cases of institutional formation. For us, it means that the createdorganizational form met the initially set goals — support of the commercializationof innovations and the development of technological entrepreneurship34. In general,such a scenario is not typical for the Russian case of innovation support.
Manyattempts at institutional construction in this area face unintended consequences anddo not achieve their goals. In our opinion, it is more important to consider thesuccessful, although to some extent deviant cases. This can allow making a feasiblecontribution to the discussion on the possibilities and limitations of institutionalconstruction in Russia.• The necessity to ensure comparability of cases. To achieve this, we created ahomogeneous sample, that is, we have chosen cases that are similar to each otheraccording to certain criteria.
Both cases were created within the state policy forsupporting innovations, according to the federal program ‘Establishment of hightech technoparks in Russian Federation’. They are the units of larger structures withthe same organizational form — the technopark. They have the same organizationalform (business incubator) themselves. They are actively working withtechnological companies, are recognized and accepted within the professional34We deliberately do not consider the degree of efficiency of the created organizational forms, theirinfluence on the economy of a city, region or country.
This could be the subject of a follow-up research.Instead we talk about the absence of a “the inflation of notions” (Gokhberg L. Principles for a NewGeneration Innovation Policy / Baltic Rim Economies, 2010. No. 3.) during the creation of organizationsaimed at developing and supporting technological entrepreneurship.18community. Thus, within this research, we describe a group of cases related tosufficiently successful attempts of institutional construction, and try to identifycharacteristic features of this group.Main findings of this research1.
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