Methodological limitations

Despite the systematic thinking that structured the data collection and data analysis processes, this study is still faced with several methodological limitations. These limitations are chiefly related to contextual issues, access to information, and methodological choices. They are presented here as a reflection of the different perspectives that can be adopted in exploring the issues studied in this thesis. However, I believe that methodological choices made in this study were adequate to convey confidence in the empirical material collected during the study and the results that address the study’s research questions.

In terms of contextual limitations, the NIS framework, as originally framed in the perspective of developed economies, emphasizes the role of the industrial sector as the key end-user of knowledge. In the Rwandan context, as discussed in the empirical setting section, the industrial sector is not yet well developed.

Only a few processing and manufacturing industries are in place in the country.

Thus, the low level of representation of industry in the sample. However, there is a national organ that oversees the private sector’s interests and visions (industry is included). There is also a public agency in charge of industrial research. These organizations were consulted to ensure that all aspects related to the expected roles of industry and the private sector, in general, were included in the study. In future studies, when the industrial sector is more advanced, we can take improve the present analysis by including complete information on the role of industry in the Rwandan NIS.

In addition to this contextual (structural) limitation, there were issues with accessing and scheduling meetings with the respondents. Most of the respondents were senior managers; they had busy schedules that, to some extent, were beyond their control due to the nature of their work. In many cases, interviews were cancelled or rescheduled. This affected the timing of interviews and the flow of information collection. However, it did not affect the overall expected quality of data. In relation to the seniority of respondents, some respondents were in politically sensitive positions, thus precluding them from commenting on some sensitive policy or government program. In many cases, the respondents refused to be recorded during the interviews. I accommodated this refusal by taking handwritten notes instead, which turned out to be an efficient way of recording the interviews as well. However, this procedure affected the time allocation for data collection because I had to conduct the interviews on my own without any assistance to ensure that the content of the interviews was correctly recorded and interpreted.

Whilst the acquisition of primary data was subject to a number of limiting factors, access to secondary data was also challenging. This was due to inconsistencies in different data sources. The fundamental inconsistencies were found in the statistical data that was recorded in national and international databases. Differences in this data was due to either the methodologies used in data collection or the purpose of their use. Because this thesis focuses on contextual realities, I decided to use national data to explore the relevant policies and strategic actions taken to respond to society’s needs. In cases where there were multiple reviews of policies and duplication of reports, I choose to use recent reports or reports from offices that possess a direct mandate for the subject of inquiry (for example, the Rwandan agricultural policy could be preferred over the USAID policy guide on agriculture). This does not entail that other sources of data were discarded entirely; they were used where appropriate. Other means of verification were also used to cross-check the accuracy of the information that was collected, including the

examination of metadata or the making of inquiries at the office in charge of executing a particular policy.

The status of research on NIS and the field of innovation studies, in general, is at a very early stage in Rwanda. There are only a few published academic articles on the topic, and the few consultancy works that exist are more mission-oriented and less reflective on core contextual issues. Instead, they try to fit the international donors’ narratives and frames of reference, thereby distorting the contextual reality. This potential source of contextual noise also makes it challenging to choose which issues one should focus on and to establish baselines to construct sound and robust analysis. Under these conditions of limited scholarly knowledge about the Rwandan NIS and the broadness of the NIS framework, it was a challenge to use the NIS as a single framework in my investigation into how knowledge uptake is being organized for enhancing innovation and development in Rwanda. Thus, the choice was made to select supplementary analytical frameworks to capture several specific issues that cannot be otherwise captured by the NIS framework (as discussed in the analytical framework section). This methodological choice was made consciously, knowing that critics of some of the frameworks, including the Value Chain Model, argue that such a model can reflect a linear way of thinking, whilst the thesis advances the idea of interactive learning. To put these supplementary frameworks to good use, I focused on how they have the potential to complement the NIS, given that it fails to engage with specifics of how relationships and interactions are initially established. Both the Value Chain Model and the Triple Helix Model were used to capture issues relevant to the actors’ relationships, policy formation, and policy implementation. In doing so, criticism about these frameworks does not impact this thesis's aim since they are not relevant to the scope of the study.