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The Ambience of Innovation: a Material Semiotic Analysis of Corporate and Community Innovation Sites Reed Stratton University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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The Ambience of Innovation: a Material Semiotic Analysis of Corporate and Community Innovation Sites Reed Stratton University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations May 2016 The Ambience of Innovation: a Material Semiotic Analysis of Corporate and Community Innovation Sites Reed Stratton University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Communication Commons, and the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Stratton, Reed, "The Ambience of Innovation: a Material Semiotic Analysis of Corporate and Community Innovation Sites" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 1208. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/1208 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE AMBIENCE OF INNOVATION: A MATERIAL SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF CORPORATE AND COMMUNITY INNOVATION SITES by Reed Stratton A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee May 2016 ABSTRACT THE AMBIENCE OF INNOVATION: A MATERIAL SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF CORPORATE AND COMMUNITY INNOVATION SITES by Reed Stratton The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2016 Under the Supervision of Professor David Clark There are unprecedented opportunities in professional and technical writing (PTW) and rhetoric research thanks to a contemporary expansion of rhetorical studies beyond the linguistic/symbolic and into the material, accounting for the rhetorical contributions of “nonhumans” (Latour Reassembling the Social). Material rhetoric frameworks such as Thomas Rickert’s ambient rhetoric and Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, provide fertile grounds for PTW/rhetoric research that explores the diffusion of “rhetoric into material space” (Rickert xii) which has especially exciting implications for the study of place and how it embodies values and rhetorically shapes acting, thinking, and the entire spectrum of “human flourishing” (Rickert xii). This renewed interest in the rhetoric of artifacts and how they unite to enact agency within material spaces correlates with an enduring PTW/rhetoric interest in the process that creates things: innovation. The rhetoric of innovation analyzes the complex communication process involved with generating, conveying, and transferring ideas into marketable technology products (Doheny-Farina; Akrich, Callon, and Latour). This work, then, contributes to contemporary PTW/rhetoric research by applying commitments of rhetorical material-semiotics to innovation to understanding the context of ii innovation and the role of place in ideation. My underlying rhetorical interest within these spaces is the generation, communication, and dispersal of agency during ideation. I explore this process from three perspectives: how the designers of innovation spaces and workshop leverage material context to convey values of innovation; how the artifacts within innovation spaces enact agency upon facilitators and participants to shape their approaches to the innovation process; and how agency is symmetrically distributed across a network of human and nonhuman actants during real time ideation. My project analyzes innovation workshops, brainstorming sessions, and strategic planning sessions, within eight material spaces designed to cultivate creativity through different material means. These spaces are diverse as are the sessions I observed, but, across all of them, I apply a mix of observation, interviews, and ambience descriptions in order to pursue the answers to my research questions and uncover insights about the dispersal of agency within innovation spaces. My analysis of these spaces has numerous implications for PTW/Rhetoric scholars in its expansion of material rhetorics into space analysis; it also has implications PTW/Rhetoric teaching related to materially distribution of agency in the classroom space. Finally, it can help innovation practitioners such as interior designers, engineers, and industrial designers to rhetorically communicate their values of innovation and establish a culture of innovation in their companies through material-linguistic means. iii © Copyright by Reed Stratton, 2016 All Rights Reserved iv To my wife, my parents, and my teachers v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ x Chapter 1: Opportunities for a Material Rhetoric Analysis of Innovation ............................. 1 Statement of Purpose .................................................................................................................... 3 Relevance to PTW/Rhetoric ......................................................................................................... 5 Rhetorical Situations have spatial dimensions ........................................................................................ 6 Nonhumans Are Rhetorical ..................................................................................................................... 7 Innovation is a Rhetorical Process ......................................................................................................... 9 Expansion of Rhetoric into Ambience ................................................................................................... 10 Innovation Trends and Assumptions ........................................................................................ 12 Contributions............................................................................................................................... 17 PTW/rhetoric Scholarship..................................................................................................................... 17 PTW/Rhetoric Pedagogy ....................................................................................................................... 18 Innovation Practice ............................................................................................................................... 19 Definition of Terms ..................................................................................................................... 21 Creativity .............................................................................................................................................. 21 Innovation ............................................................................................................................................. 21 Ideation ................................................................................................................................................. 22 Idea Constellation ................................................................................................................................. 22 Innovation Sites .................................................................................................................................... 22 Innovation Site Facilitator .................................................................................................................... 23 Dissertation Overview ................................................................................................................ 23 Chapter 2: Literature Review................................................................................................................ 23 Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design .................................................................................... 24 Chapter 4: Data Analysis ..................................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 5: Implications ........................................................................................................................ 24 Chapter 2: Literature Review .................................................................................................... 25 Perception of Creative Space ..................................................................................................... 26 vi Affect and Workplace Creativity .............................................................................................. 32 Rhetorical Conceptualizations of Space.................................................................................... 36 Space as Text ........................................................................................................................................ 36 The Social Production of Space ............................................................................................................ 37 Space as Site of Bodily Interactions ...................................................................................................... 39 Space Embodying Cultural/Social Values ............................................................................................. 40 Materiality of Rhetoric ............................................................................................................... 43 Material Semiotic Frameworks ................................................................................................. 47 Ambient Rhetoric .................................................................................................................................. 53 Actor-network theory ...........................................................................................................................
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