The verticality of policy mixes for sustainability transitions: A case study of solar water heating in China

Climate change and sustainable development are the defining challenges of the modern era. The field of sustainability transitions seeks systematic solutions for fundamental transformations of socio-technical systems towards sustainability, and exploring the role of policy mixes has been a central research agenda within the field. In the extant literature, there exists a lack of both conceptual and empirical research on the vertical dimension of policy mixes for sustainability transitions. This study provides a multilevel and evolutionary interpretation of the vertical interactions of policy mixes in the process of industrial path development towards sustainability transitions. An exemplary case of solar water heating (SWH) technology in Shandong Province in China is presented, capturing both the bottom-up and top-down processes of interactions. On the one hand, urban-level policy initiatives can inform higher-level policymaking; on the other hand, national-level priorities can greatly configure policy strategies for lower-level governments. Moreover, as the industry matures, the interactions of multilevel policy mixes evolve from simpler, unidirectional patterns to more complex, bidirectional ones through a vertical policy-learning feedback mechanism. This study generates two important policy implications that extend beyond the Chinese context: first, dynamic vertical interactions between multilevel governments indicate the need to develop more nuanced perspectives on the design of policy mixes; second, policy makers need to hold a more dynamic view of policy mixes by recognizing their temporal and coevolutionary nature through the policy learning process.     

The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions

Understanding how policymaking processes can influence the rate and direction of socio-technical change towards sustainability is an important, yet underexplored research agenda in the field of sustainability transitions. Some studies have sought to explain how individual policy instruments can influence transitions, and the politics surrounding this process. We argue that such individual policy instruments can cause wider feedback mechanisms that influence not only their own future development, but also other instruments in the same area. Consequently, by extending the scope of analysis to that of a policy mix allows us to account for multiple policy effects on socio-technical change and resultant feedback mechanisms influencing the policy processes that underpin further policy mix change. This paper takes a first step in this regard by combining policy studies and innovation studies literatures to conceptualise the co-evolutionary dynamics of policy mixes and socio-technical systems. We focus on policy processes to help explain how policy mixes influence socio-technical change, and how changes in the socio-technical system also shape the evolution of the policy mix. To do so we draw on insights from the policy feedback literature, and propose a novel conceptual framework. The framework highlights that policy mixes aiming to foster sustainability transitions need to be designed to create incentives for beneficiaries to mobilise further support, while overcoming a number of prevailing challenges which may undermine political support over time. In the paper, we illustrate the framework using the example of the zero carbon homes policy mix in the UK. We conclude with deriving research and policy implications for analysing and designing dynamic policy mixes for sustainability transitions.     

Materiality and sustainability transitions: integrating climate change in transport infrastructure in Ontario,Canada

Infrastructure threatens to lock-in societies to fossil fuels unless something is done now. This is because infrastructure lasts for such a long time, meaning that any infrastructure built or rebuilt now will last well into the twenty-first century – until the end of the century, in some cases. Consequently, there is a need to integrate climate change into infrastructure now or societies will be left with infrastructure designed around unsustainable socio-technical systems (such as combustion engines, roads, and suburbanization). Such change is conceptualized in the literature as a sustainability transition. However, any attempts at such transitions have to address the ‘materialities’ of infrastructure systems (physical form, environmental context, and so on). In this paper, I develop the concept of ‘socio-material systems’ and apply it to transport infrastructure in Ontario, Canada.     

Policy mixes for sustainability transitions: New approaches and insights through bridging innovation and policy studies

There has been an increasing interest in science, technology and innovation policy studies in the topic of policy mixes. While earlier studies conceptualised policy mixes mainly in terms of combinations of instruments to support innovation, more recent literature extends the focus to how policy mixes can foster sustainability transitions. For this, broader policy mix conceptualisations have emerged which also include considerations of policy goals and policy strategies; policy mix characteristics such as consistency, coherence, credibility and comprehensiveness; as well as policy making and implementation processes. It is these broader conceptualisations of policy mixes which are the subject of the special issue introduced in this article. We aim at supporting the emergence of a new strand of interdisciplinary social science research on policy mixes which combines approaches, methods and insights from innovation and policy studies to further such broader policy mix research with a specific focus on fostering sustainability transitions. In this article we introduce this topic and present a bibliometric analysis of the literature on policy mixes in both fields as well as their emerging connections. We also introduce five major themes in the policy mix literature and summarise the contributions made by the articles in the special issue to these: methodological advances; policy making and implementation; actors and agency; evaluating policy mixes; and the co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems. We conclude by summarising key insights for policy making.     

Users as service innovators: The case of banking services

Many services can be self-provided. An individual user or a user firm can, for example, choose to do its own accounting - choose to self-provide that service - instead of hiring an accounting firm to provide it. Since users can ‘serve themselves’ in many cases, it is reasonable to suspect that they can also innovate with respect to the services they self-provide - possibly without the assistance of service providers.In this paper, we conduct the first quantitative exploration of the importance of services innovation by users, focusing on the field of commercial and retail banking services. We find that 55% of today's computerized commercial banking services were first developed and implemented by non-bank firms for their own use, and 44% of today's computerized retail banking services were first developed and implemented by individual service users rather than by commercial financial service providers. Manual precursors to these services - manual procedures that carried out functions similar to computerized services in our sample - were almost always developed by users as self-services.Our empirical findings differ significantly from prevalent producer-centered views of service development. We speculate that the patterns we have observed in banking with respect to the major role of users in service development will prove to be quite general. If so, this will be an important matter: on the order of 75% of GDP in advanced economies today is derived from services. We discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice in service development.     

The role of proximity in sustainability transitions: A technological niche evolution analysis

The transition literature (especially within economic geography, urban studies and political ecology) highlights that the proximity between actors plays a crucial role in determining the dynamics of sustainable transitions. Economic geographers distinguish between absolute (spatial) and relative (non-spatial) proximity. These play different roles in the transition process, though relative proximity has been scarcely investigated in empirical studies. To overcome this limitation, we investigated the relevance of spatial and non-spatial proximity in the evolution of a technological niche. We also explored the roles of different kinds of non-spatial proximity (i.e. cognitive, organizational, social, institutional), in niche evolution, in terms of network expansion. To this end, we analyzed the Italian biofuel niche, as it has already undergone different evolution phases. We found that the most relevant drivers of niche networking were social, cognitive and institutional proximity. Additionally, while social proximity was relevant throughout the entire life span of the niche, cognitive and institutional proximity gained significance only in the maturity phase, marking a transition point in the niche evolution. From these findings we derive that policy makers should (i) concentrate on social proximity to speed up niche evolution and (ii) increase cognitive and institutional proximity in the development phase in order to consolidate the niche in the maturity phase. This could occur through initiatives aimed at creating common experiences (e.g. business incubators, technological communities) and the intervention of national and/or supranational institutions to create network externality conditions by means of R&D subsidies.     

Towards a typology of intermediaries in sustainability transitions: A systematic review and a research agenda

Intermediary actors have been proposed as key catalysts that speed up change towards more sustainable socio-technical systems. Research on this topic has gradually gained traction since 2009, but has been complicated by the inconsistency regarding what intermediaries are in the context of such transitions and which activities they focus on, or should focus on. We briefly elaborate on the conceptual foundations of the studies of intermediaries in transitions, and how intermediaries have been connected to different transition theories. This shows the divergence – and sometimes a lack – of conceptual foundations in this research. In terms of transitions theories, many studies connect to the multi-level perspective and strategic niche management, while intermediaries in technological innovation systems and transition management have been much less explored. We aim to bring more clarity to the topic of intermediaries in transitions by providing a definition of transition intermediaries and a typology of five intermediary types that is sensitive to the emergence, neutrality and goals of intermediary actors as well as their context and level of action. Some intermediaries are specifically set up to facilitate transitions, while others grow into the role during the process of socio-technical change. Based on the study, as an important consideration for future innovation governance, we argue that systemic and niche intermediaries are the most crucial forms of intermediary actors in transitions, but they need to be complemented by a full ecology of intermediaries, including regime-based transition intermediaries, process intermediaries and user intermediaries.     

Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges

Sustainable development is prompting a re-assessment of innovation and technological change. This review paper contributes three things towards this re-assessment activity. First, it considers how the history of innovation studies for sustainable development can be explained as a process of linking broader analytical frameworks to successively larger problem framings. Second it introduces an emerging framework whose allure rests in its ability to capture the bigger picture: the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions (MLP). Whilst burgeoning researcher networks and literature suggests this policy-relevant theory is attractive, it is not without its challenges. The third purpose of this paper is to elaborate these challenges as areas for further research and development. We do this by drawing upon contributions to this special section and the wider literature.     

创新创业：政策分析框架与案例研究

“创新创业”作为推动未来技术和产业变革的重要方式,引发了关于政策理论构建和实践探索的新思考。本文回顾了当前创新创业政策的研究现状,从技术和市场两个视角定义了“创新创业”,从“政策资源-利益相关者-发展阶段”三个维度构建了创新创业政策分析框架,并以此框架分析了《关于推动创新创业高质量发展打造“双创”升级版的意见》。研究发现：(1)“创新创业”是“基于创新的创业”,既强调新兴技术迭代创新、商业模式创新和政府管理创新,也强调满足当前市场需求或创造未来市场需求。创新创业兼具技术和市场的双重不确定性,前者对创业者把握技术发展趋势的能力提出更高的要求,后者对创业者承担双重不确定性引发的创业风险的能力提出更高的要求。(2)创新创业的政策资源主要包括人才、财税、金融、孵化服务、公共服务,利益相关者主要包括创新创业者和创新创业企业、政府部门、高校和科研机构、金融机构、创新创业服务机构以及大中型企业,发展阶段分为孵化初创期、成长发展期。(3)“双创升级版”政策充分考虑了创新创业的阶段性特征和特定利益相关者需求,其中政府采购等财税政策对创新创业的支持力度较大。本文提出以下政策启示：一是创新创业是高水平创新人...     

Social movements and institutional entrepreneurship as facilitators of technology transition: The case of free/open-source software

We integrate insights from the literature on social movements and institutional entrepreneurship into the strategic niche management (SNM) and multilevel perspective (MLP) frameworks to understand the emergence of Linux, a free/open-source operating system, in a regime dominated by proprietary operating systems such as Unix and Windows NT. Employing a “microhistories” methodology, we document how actors in the free/open-source movement took steps that enabled an alternate technological niche to form, gain momentum and eventually infiltrate the extant regime. Our account delineates the key role that actors play in shaping the identity of a niche, amplifying its presence, and finally mainstreaming it. We observe a heterogenous response by incumbents to the emergent niche and highlight the sustained coexistence of a niche and regime as a distinct form of technological transition. Finally, we demonstrate the significant impact that a niche can have, spanning beyond the targeted regime, and becoming part of the landscape. Our insights highlight how tracing the processes involved in the emergence and development of a niche can provide a prospective and generative understanding of technological transition, thereby contributing to and complementing the extant SNM and MLP literatures.     

Inter-generational transitions in socio-technical systems: The case of mobile communications

Many technology studies have conceptualized transitions between technological generations as a series of S-curve performance improvements over time. Surprisingly, the interregnum between successive generations has received little attention. To understand what happens in the interregnum, we study the transition from 2G to 3G in mobile communications. Our study identifies the presence of forces for both change and continuity across heterogeneous social and technical elements shaping an uneven transition between 2G and 3G mobile communications technology platforms. Unanticipated misalignments and asynchronies that emerged during the journey shifted the incentives of the various actors involved to participate. Based on these observations, we offer several conjectures as to the dynamics that can give rise to temporal discords during inter-generational technological transitions.     

论东莞市清溪镇国家可持续发展实验区的建设经验

实绩表明，东莞市清溪镇探索可持续发展道路的实践是比较成功的。在实地调研的基础上，结合理论分析，从理论与实践的结合上系统总结了东莞市清溪镇国家可持续发展实验区的建设经验，对于同类型地区实施可持续发展战略具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Evaluating a digital library self-archiving service: The BDBComp user case study

In this article, we present an overview of a self-archiving service for the Brazilian Digital Library of Computing (BDBComp) and describe a user experiment conducted to evaluate it. This experiment involved several potential real users, including computer science graduate students and professors, and archivists/librarians. The results of this study and their implications for similar services are described and analyzed, following sound statistical principles, which can serve as a basis for other similar studies. These results and their analysis indicate that we have successed in building a usable, efficient and learnable self-archiving service, properties which are essential to bring users to the system.     

The mobility of economists and the diffusion of policy ideas: The influence of economics on national policies

Economic policies are innovations that have important effects on countries and their social welfare. Far from being simply technical in nature, such policies are often ideological innovations. This paper examines three economic policy innovations (privatization, central bank independence, and pension reform) and shows how the diffusion of these policies depended not only upon the mobility of American-trained Ph.D. economists to adopting countries, but also the state of agreement among economists on the value of these policy innovations. By estimating hazard models for adoption times, the effects of mobility and policy agreement are shown to explain the adoption patterns. The implications of this analysis are to treat the creation and diffusion of economic policies as innovations that are subject to trial and error revision as well as to the changing consensus within an academic community.     

The skill bias effect of technological and organisational change: Evidence and policy implications

Previous studies have suggested that technological change is the main cause of the recent increase in demand for highly skilled workers in developed countries. However, a more recent strand of literature has also introduced the “Skill Biased Organisational Change” hypothesis, according to which the increasing diffusion of new organisational practices within firms plays a role in the increasing demand for skilled workers. We estimate a SUR model for a sample of 400 Italian manufacturing firms, showing that upskilling is more a function of reorganisational strategy than a consequence of technological change alone. Moreover, some evidence of superadditive effects emerges, which is consistent with the notion that technology and organisation jointly affect the demand for labour.     

Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study

This paper addresses the question of how technological transitions (TT) come about? Are there particular patterns and mechanisms in transition processes? TT are defined as major, long-term technological changes in the way societal functions are fulfilled. TT do not only involve changes in technology, but also changes in user practices, regulation, industrial networks, infrastructure, and symbolic meaning or culture. This paper practices ‘appreciative theory’ [R.R. Nelson, S.G. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, Bellknap Press, Cambridge, MA, 1982] and brings together insights from evolutionary economics and technology studies. This results in a multi-level perspective on TT where two views of the evolution are combined: (i) evolution as a process of variation, selection and retention, (ii) evolution as a process of unfolding and reconfiguration. The perspective is empirically illustrated with a qualitative longitudinal case-study, the transition from sailing ships to steamships, 1780–1900. Three particular mechanisms in TT are described: niche-cumulation, technological add-on and hybridisation, riding along with market growth.     

Inertia in response to non-paradigmatic change: The case of meta-organizations

We add a new perspective to research on organizational response to non-paradigmatic change by studying an irregular yet increasingly important form of organizing: meta-organizations (MOs), i.e., associations whose members are organizations, rather than individuals. We use extensive revelatory field data from three longitudinal case studies of German industry associations and their reactions to the emergence of online trade to show that MOs, similar to other organizations, respond with inertia when they are confronted with discontinuous breakthroughs. However, our data also demonstrate that MO inertia is idiosyncratic in that it stems from distinct MO characteristics, particularly a culture of consensus and an elitist identity, which in turn reinforce MOs’ lack of champions, limited environmental intimacy, and protracted decision-making. We also find that inertial forces in MOs are partially offset by various enablers of change that are either anchored in a given MO's constitution or embedded in its routines. We contribute to existing research on discontinuous change and theory of MOs by inducing a formal model of MO inertia and its underlying mechanisms. Our mid-range theory has important implications for the administration of MOs, in particular during periods of environmental turbulence.     

Convergence of national science and technology policies: the case of Finland

It is a commonly held view that differences in national histories, cultures, political contexts, and the timing of a country’s entry into the industrialization process are reflected as diversity among countries in their goals, priorities, boundaries, directions, ranges, instruments and also in the performance of science and technology policy. This article, which examines development processes of Finnish science and technology policy, concludes that instead of divergence there is such startling convergence of organizational forms and practices. Finland has largely adopted its policy doctrines and instruments from the countries, which from the Finnish perspective, have been considered legitimate and successful.