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Transitioning Towards a Knowledge Society

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Abstract

How does one investigate the knowledge-based development of a city or a region? For this study, various methodological approaches were used to obtain the needed data as well as to arrange and to analyze the findings. The rapid ethnographic field study approach enables the researchers to witness first-hand the investigated region, the on-site experts’ interviews enrich this experience with a view on the city’s potentials and weaknesses from a different perspective. The outcomes of these qualitative approaches are completed with data obtained through desktop research, including bibliometrics and social media metrics, and, finally, evaluated with help of the SWOT-analysis (an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). This mixture of qualitative as well as quantitative data and the recursive theory development constitutes the grounded theory method, which was the base for the applied research framework.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Web of Science: http://webofknowledge.com/.

  2. 2.

    Scopus: http://scopus.com/.

  3. 3.

    GCC Patent Office: http://www.gccpo.org/DefaultEn.aspx.

  4. 4.

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/.

  5. 5.

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Julia Gremm

  2. Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Julia Barth

  3. Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Kaja J. Fietkiewicz

  4. Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Wolfgang G. Stock

Authors
  1. Julia Gremm
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  2. Julia Barth
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  3. Kaja J. Fietkiewicz
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  4. Wolfgang G. Stock
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Correspondence to Julia Gremm .

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Gremm, J., Barth, J., Fietkiewicz, K.J., Stock, W.G. (2018). Methods. In: Transitioning Towards a Knowledge Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71195-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71195-9_4

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