Overcoming the harmony fallacy: How values shape the course of innovation systems

Jonas Heiberg () and Bernhard Truffer ()
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Jonas Heiberg: Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Switzerland
Bernhard Truffer: Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Switzerland

No 2021(03), GEIST - Geography of Innovation and Sustainability Transitions from GEIST Working Paper Series

Abstract: The technological innovation systems (TIS) framework is one of the dominant perspectives in transitions studies to analyze success conditions of newly emerging technologies and industries. Key conditions for innovation success reside in overcoming so-called system failures. So far, TIS studies mostly adopted a rather harmonious view on the values, goals and interests that motivate the different actors and by this were unable to address competition, conflicts and, in particular, battles over diverging directionalities within the system. To tackle this “harmony fallacy”, we propose an institutional logics based measure for “value-based proximities” among actors, which serve to identify the “degree of harmony” in the field. To operationalize these concepts, we apply socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA) based on transcripts from 26 interviews, covering the case of modular water technologies in Switzerland. Results indicate that value orientations crucially affect system failures, diverging technological preferences and collaboration patterns. Conflictual field logics may prevent the stabilization of system structures in a specific country and drive actors to engage in sub- or transnational networks. This analysis enables to inspire key conceptual tasks of innovation system analysis, like the identification of system failures, the setting of appropriate system boundaries and the formulation of better policy implications.

Keywords: Technological innovation systems (TIS); values; institutional logics; socio-technical configuration analysis; geography of transitions; modular water technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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