Unpacking investment decisions in biorefineries

Teis Hansen and Lars Coenen ()
Additional contact information
Lars Coenen: CIRCLE, Lund University; Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU)

No 2015/34, Papers in Innovation Studies from Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research

Abstract: The development and diffusion of biorefineries is a central factor in the transition towards a bioeconomy. Such biorefineries, which produce multiple products based on biological material, are heralded as an important opportunity for renewal of the pulp and paper industry in developed countries, facing increasing competition and environmental requirements. However, pulp and paper firms have only made few investments in biorefineries.

Examining investment decision in Swedish and Finnish pulp and paper firms, this paper highlights the importance of considering decision-making processes within companies in order to understand the limited diffusion of biorefinery technologies. Further, the paper identifies organisational innovations in the form of new divisions, forward vertical integration, and creation of new value chain relations as central to commercialisation of biorefinery technologies. Theoretically, it argues that the technological innovation systems framework should be complemented with insights on decision-making processes within companies in order to understand the development of emerging technologies.

Keywords: Biorefineries; investment decisions; organisational innovation; pulp and paper industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L73 O31 O33 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2015-09-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-ino
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://wp.circle.lu.se/upload/CIRCLE/workingpapers/201534_Hansen_Coenen.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2015_034

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers in Innovation Studies from Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research, Lund University, PO Box 117, SE-22100 Lund, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Torben Schubert ().