Detecting Social Innovation agency: Methodological reflections on units of analysis in dispersed transformation processes

Considering that it is important for the social innovation research field to
confront its methodological challenges, this contribution addresses the
challenge of choosing appropriate units of analysis. In processes of
transformative social innovation, the agency is distributed and therefore
fundamentally difficult to detect and ascribe. This contribution addresses the
challenge to develop methodologies that are consistent with this relational
ontology, critically evaluating the three main unit of analysis choices that
guided an international comparison of 20 transnational SI networks and their
local manifestations. Methodological lessons are drawn on the actors that SI
can be ascribed to, on the transnational agency through which it spreads and on
the relevant transformation contexts involved. This provides SI research with
methodological tools to handle the elusiveness of SI agency, a methodological
challenge that becomes particularly pressing in attempts towards systematic
comparison of cases.