ABSTRACT
What has been argued in this paper is that to understand the practice of innovation, one needs
to understand the relational capital and social spaces through and by which innovation
occurs. The exclusive use of economic accounting models, conceptual models or empirical
models that focus on analytic knowledge bases and science and technology can tell us only
so much. Finding ways of capturing relational capital in empirical accounts of innovation,
which can be used in different sectors, can potentially tell us much more about who
drives innovation, where this occurs and which social spaces act as glue and platforms.
