Thomas P. Hughes’ work on the history of technology and the ethnographic studies of actor-network theory have a lot in common. Their genuine contribution to innovation research consists in the identification of development stages that are passed through in the context of innovation processes and in which the networking of social and technical elements is organized. Beyond technocentrism and sociocentrism, attention is drawn to the interweaving of nature and society in the mode of technology. This goes hand in hand with a reassessment of basic social science concepts. It suspends culturally ingrained notions (singular actor, autopoietic system, material nature, symbolic society) and replaces them with the concept of hybrid actor-networks. A comparative reading of the two approaches results in the outline of a sociology of innovation networks (SIN). With the help of this approach, general mechanisms, social conditions, and specific competences can be identified in order to explain how the new enters the social world and is anchored there. This creates sociologically based orientation knowledge for a better understanding of social innovation processes.