Narrative Institutional Analysis and The National Innovation System in Russia

Abstract

The paper deals with the widespread narratives describing the institutions specific to Russia’s innovation system. Narrative economics provides an interdisciplinary research perspective, due to its focus on qualitative data that were ignored by the conventional economics for a long time. We emphasize that narrative analysis is rooted in the methodological framework of original institutional economics. Literature review using the PRISMA method did not identified any examples of applying narrative analysis to institutional studied of Russia’s innovation system. The empirical data for this paper involve popular narratives contained in 43 rating media sources extracted from a Russian information analysis agency Integrum. The sources were selected using the real-time media monitoring and analysis system Medialogia. The study covered the period from January 1, 2010 to July 1, 2021. Content analysis of the core ideas extracted from scholarly publications and media sources allowed to identify common narratives on institutional arrangement of Russia’s innovation system, that impede commercialization of innovations. However, conflicting approaches are provided by the literature to deal with related problem situations. The viral spread of popular narratives that affect the actors of Russia’s innovation system is illustrated by one of the typical narratives about the Russian innovation system. The research implications can be useful for developing a strategy for state innovation policy. Improved methodology for assessing virality of narratives and their power, as well as the empirical testing of proposed hypotheses remain the subject for future research.