Incumbent Actors Research Articles

Encircling Cities From Rural Areas? Barriers To The Diffusion Of Solar Water Heaters In China’s Urban Market

Abstract Researchers have contributed a fruitful understanding of the facilitating factors for solar water heaters (SWH) diffusion in China at different governance levels. However, the barriers to its further diffusion in the urban environment have so far not been addressed. One feature of SWH diffusion in China is that it emerged from the rural market, mainly driven by market demand. This article explicitly focuses on China's diffusion of SWH from rural areas to urban cities and explores the problems and barriers obstructing its full potential in cities. Applying the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) framework, the results find that the technological niche is still not mature enough, and the urban regime is still powerful in terms of building infrastructure, consumer demand, policy coordination and vested interests. SWH development in China is promoted more as a business opportunity, while environmental discourses have not been powerful enough to promote further diffusion in the urban context. We suggest there is a need to focus on technology innovation with higher industry standards and to implement more benefit-based incentive policies to motivate incumbent actors.

Socio-technical scenarios as a methodological tool to explore social and political feasibility in low-carbon transitions: Bridging computer models and the multi-level perspective in UK electricity generation (2010–2050)

Social acceptance and political feasibility are important issues in low-carbon transitions. Since computer models struggle to address these issues, the paper advances socio-technical scenarios as a novel methodological tool. Contributing to recent dialogue approaches, we develop an eight-step methodological procedure that produces socio-technical scenarios through various interactions between the multi-level perspective and computer models. As a specific contribution, we propose ‘transition bottlenecks’ as a methodological aid to mediate dialogue between qualitative MLP-based analysis of contemporary dynamics and quantitative, model-generated future pathways. The transition bottlenecks also guide the articulation of socio-technical storylines that suggest how the social acceptance and political feasibility of particular low-carbon innovations can be improved through social interactions and endogenous changes in discourses, preferences, support coalitions and policies. Drawing on results from the 3-year PATHWAYS project, we demonstrate these contributions for the UK electricity system, developing two low-carbon transition pathways to 2050 commensurate with the 2 °C target, one based on technological substitution (enacted by incumbent actors), and one based on broader system transformation (enacted by new entrants).

Encircling cities from rural areas? Barriers to the diffusion of solar water heaters in China's urban market

Researchers have contributed a fruitful understanding of the facilitating factors for solar water heaters (SWH) diffusion in China at different governance levels. However, the barriers to its further diffusion in the urban environment have so far not been addressed. One feature of SWH diffusion in China is that it emerged from the rural market, mainly driven by market demand. This article explicitly focuses on China's diffusion of SWH from rural areas to urban cities and explores the problems and barriers obstructing its full potential in cities. Applying the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) framework, the results find that the technological niche is still not mature enough, and the urban regime is still powerful in terms of building infrastructure, consumer demand, policy coordination and vested interests. SWH development in China is promoted more as a business opportunity, while environmental discourses have not been powerful enough to promote further diffusion in the urban context. We suggest there is a need to focus on technology innovation with higher industry standards and to implement more benefit-based incentive policies to motivate incumbent actors.

Typology of future clean energy communities: An exploratory structure, opportunities, and challenges

This paper considers the potential significance of ‘clean energy communities’ (CECs) in the transformation of the present socio-technical regimes underlying our centralized energy systems, towards a more distributed and decentralized future. It explains the centralized, distributed, and decentralized sub-structures, embedded in current energy systems and energy markets. We analyze long-term dynamics and possible pathways of this transition, and the co-evolution of energy systems and communities, using an exploratory structure, drawing on insights from transition theories, innovation studies, and social network concepts. This includes analysis of the various forms of CECs – including virtual power plants, peer-to-peer trading, microgrids, and community-scale energy projects – emerging in a number of developed and developing jurisdictions, including Australia. This analysis suggests that low-carbon transition pathways will be varied, driven by social, technological, and organizational contexts, and shaped by institutional change processes, and interaction with the existing regime and incumbent actors. Social and technological entrepreneurs, and utilities, operating within an environment increasingly defined by energy consumers, industry groups, and policy actors, will need to be adaptable and innovative in choosing strategic directions, associated investment decisions, establishing appropriate alliances, and acquiring resources, to meet their goals in this low-carbon energy transition.

Relationship archetypes in aftermarkets

Aftermarket sales and profits have become an increasingly important part of an Original Equipment Manufacturer’s (OEM) business model. The attractiveness of the after-sales business, however, has also been recognised by other parties (e.g. competitors, suppliers) who try to capture a share of the aftermarket. A highly profitable aftermarket creates a strong incentive for the supplier to disintermediate the established supply chain and sell directly to the OEM’s aftermarket customers. To counter this threat, OEMs must be aware of the activities and actors on their aftermarket, and should understand and systematically analyse the existing or changing business relationships among the incumbent and emergent actors in the aftermarket ecosystem. In this exploratory study we use case study research with 29 companies (customer, OEM, supplier, or competitor) and draw on social network theory – in particular the concepts of structural embeddedness, structural hole and supply chain disintermediation – to examine and discuss triadic and tetradic relationship constellations (archetypes) in aftermarkets. Recognising these relationship archetypes in aftermarkets can help firms to adapt their after-sales strategies and protect the competitive advantage, revenues and profits stemming from their after-sales business.

Financialisation as a strategic action field: An historically informed field study of governance reforms in Chinese state-owned enterprises

Abstract This paper extends extant research on financialisation, which has mainly evolved in advanced capitalist economies, through an historically informed field study of governance reforms in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Mobilising the theory of strategic action fields (SAFs), we conceptualise the evolution of such reforms as a protracted framing process where different actors sought to influence the meanings attributed to shareholder-focussed governance practices. We examine how challengers of extant governance practices, such as the World Bank, and incumbent actors representing the interests of the Chinese state vied for influence over governance reforms and how various regulatory bodies, assuming the role of internal governance units (IGUs), enjoyed varying degrees of success in advancing context-specific governance practices. Shareholder-focussed accounting techniques, such as Economic Value Added (EVA™), played an increasingly salient role in this process. Yet, emerging governance practices primarily came to reflect the interests of the Chinese state in maintaining and increasing the value of state assets whilst preserving its political control of SOEs. We contribute to the literature on financialisation by showing how pressures for shareholder value creation can be channelled into governance practices which attenuate the pervasive effects of financialisation in contemporary society. We also contribute to research on accounting in emerging economies by exploring the under-researched role of IGUs in the local adaptation of “Western” governance practices. We discuss how future studies can bring these bodies of research closer together and extend research on financialisation to a wider range of institutional contexts.

Imagine all these futures: On heterogeneous preferences and mental models in the German energy transition

The implementation of theoretically designed low carbon energy transitions provided by scientific policy advice proves to be challenging in practice. For the case of Germany prominent rhetoric frontlines separate proponents of centralized and decentralized solutions for decarbonizing its electricity infrastructure. This paper investigates whether the claim that incumbent actors favor centralized and challengers decentralized solutions finds supporting evidence on a small sample of practitioners from different fields of the German electricity system. It further aims to identify qualitative infrastructure scenarios for its long-term future based on the practitioners’ mental models of system effects. We find empirical evidence for the postulated claim; yet there are no clear-cut camps. Disagreements across elicited mental models of practitioners from the same fields render the identification of internally consistent scenarios impossible for the full sample. The largest possible subsamples lead to three related visions of a substantially transformed electricity system dominated by decentral, small and medium-scale solutions coexisting with some centralized, large-scale infrastructures. The strong heterogeneity in preferences and mental models we uncover leads us to conclude that transparent and participatory public discourse on underlying worldviews, norms and values is paramount for accelerating institutional reform paving the way for energy transitions in Germany and globally.

La corrupción como estrés sobre el sistema político: cuatro escenarios que explican las estrategias de defensa del statu quo

It is currently possible to consider public corruption as the most insidious and dangerous phenomenon to economic, political, and social development in the country. Both the local and international reactions to the recurrent scandals, however, have been mostly unable to translate into the proper implementation of effective public policies. Why have the public demands to fight corruption failed to break once and for all the statu quo? This paper suggests the formal recognition of both illicit incentives and political capital as key elements to explain the level of political will to fight corruption. Building on this premise, it offers an analysis of the corruption phenomenon based on four possible scenarios though which its presence produces stress for the political system and threatens the stability of the statu quo: (i) Inefficiency in processes; (ii) public perception; (iii) acquired intolerance; and (iv) accumulated neglect. Discussing specific cases taking place over the past three decades, the paper also describes the governmental strategies that were adopted on each occasion to reduce demands and stimulate popular support, and which ultimately reflected the particular position of the incumbent actors.

The Downside of Disruption: The Risks Associated with Transformational Change in the Delivery of Legal Services

Change is coming to the legal profession. New forms of communicating, researching, advertising, finding clients, serving clients, and preparing documents are transforming the way legal services are delivered in the 21st century. The advent of new technologies, like the internet, machine learning, and mobile communications have put the legal profession on the cusp of what business theorist Clayton Christensen calls “disruptive innovation”: transformative shifts in a market for a product or service that threaten the business models, and even the very existence, of incumbent actors within that market. In the legal profession, these technology-enabled changes are streamlining all aspects of the delivery of legal services and changing the ways that lawyers identify, market to, and secure clients; conduct legal research; prepare court documents; compile and review discovery; collaborate with other lawyers, clients and experts; and prepare contracts, patent applications and other legal documents. These changes are not without their risks. This Article explores some of the risks associated with the disruption in the legal industry and identifies some of the potential downsides of this disruption.

One or many transitions: local electricity experiments in Germany

A characterizing feature of the German electricity transition is that it started as a movement arising from the civil society. Initially the movement was directed against nuclear energy and later on turned into a movement favouring decentralized forms of energy production and distribution as well as local control over energy issues. Once these demands found official recognition and regulatory support, a dynamic development ensued in which a host of new actors with new ideas and strategies became involved in the field of electricity generation. Regions, cities and villages experimenting with socio-technical innovations and aiming to implement new concepts developed governance structures under high uncertainty. These governance structures mirror space-specific social, political, technological and economic constellations. Once the old incumbent actors in the field began to falter, both government and electricity providers started to stem the tide of decentralized initiatives, whose dynamic in fact has recently been seriously weakened. In order to help us better understand these developments in a more generic context, the political-cultural theory of strategic action fields as developed by Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam will be applied.

Identifying emerging core technologies for the future: Case study of patents published by leading telecommunication organizations

In recent years, the volume of mobile traffic has increased at an unprecedented rate and the mobile paradigm has changed. These dynamics have driven the next-generation telecommunications technologies, and the existing fourth-generation technology is reaching maturity. The pre-acquisition of promising future technologies enables firms to achieve and sustain their business growth; thus, numerous organizations in the telecommunications sector have made a huge amount of effort to develop fifth-generation (5G) technologies. Although understanding these emerging and promising 5G technologies is essential, they still remain poorly investigated. To fill this research gap, we first define the characteristics of promising technologies in the telecommunications sector, then develop a framework for identifying them based on patents. Specifically, we design three patent indices for deriving the core patents published by leading organizations in the sector. We then apply bibliographic coupling and text mining to the patents and identify their major innovation trends. We identify 21 technology fields as promising areas emphasized by the leading organizations. Theoretically, this study is one of the few attempts to examine various approaches to identify promising technologies and to suggest the most appropriate one considering the research purpose as well as the characteristics of telecommunications sector. In practice, this study can provide information about patent activities of key incumbent actors and thus offer some insights into recent technological developments towards 5G.

Towards a low carbon future: a phenomenology of local electricity experiments in Germany

A characterizing feature of the German electricity transition is that it started as a movement arising from the civil society. Initially the movement was directed against nuclear energy and later on turned into a movement favoring decentralized forms of energy production and distribution as well as local control over energy questions. Once these demands found official recognition and regulatory support, a dynamic development ensued in which a host of new actors with new ideas and strategies became involved in the field of electricity generation. Regions, cities and villages experimenting with socio-technical innovations and aiming to implement new concepts developed governance structures under high uncertainty. These governance structures mirror space-specific social, political, technological and economic constellations. Once the old incumbent actors in the field began to falter, both government and electricity providers started to stem the tide of decentralized initiatives, whose dynamic in fact has recently been seriously weakened. In order to help us better understand these developments in a more generic context, the theory of strategic action fields will be applied.

Incumbent Actors as Niche Agents: The German Car Industry and the Taming of the “Stuttgart E-Mobility Region”

The system of mobility currently faces severe challenges. Particularly in cities, strategic interventions are made to support a transition towards sustainable mobility. Incumbent actors from the car industry are often invited to play a key role in such initiatives. The Stuttgart region is supported with public money to become a model region of sustainable mobility because it is base to key actors of the German car industry. This paper examines the locus of agency in such a “transition arena”. How do key actors frame the challenge of sustainable mobility? What role is attributed to public policy at various governance levels and to the “local” industry, respectively? In the case of the Stuttgart region, we find a high ability of key industry actors to reframe transition initiatives for sustainable mobility and align public policy with their interests—particularly in local, i.e., place-bound contexts. This underlines the need for transition studies to pay more attention to the agency of incumbent actors and their capacity to absorb sustainable alternatives without changing dominant industry structures.

When a participatory slum sanitation project encounters urban informality: The case of the Greater Mumbai Metropolitan Region

This paper traces what happens to the official process and objectives of a participatory slum sanitation project, the Nirmal Mumbai Metropolitan Region Abhiyan, when non-governmental organizations (NGOs) encounter informalized municipal administration. We do this by describing the implementation phase from the points of view of the actors involved in two cities within the region, analysing them in terms of contraventions and non-enforcement of official objectives and regulations and then relating it back to discussions about both participatory slum sanitation and informality and municipal administration in India. In this case, elected councillors’ territoriality over slums, plus the coordinated actions among them, municipal officials and local contractors undermined the declared physical and social objectives of these programmes. In fact, NGOs quickly began following the rules and practices of informalized municipal administration. These findings are significant for those working on improving basic urban services because where incumbent actors in municipal governance can coordinate to undermine programmes, or alter them to their relative advantage, then participatory development programmes (as currently organized) lack fitness for purpose. This paper also contributes to debates on municipal governance in India by focusing on how political mediators, in this case ward councillors’ bending or breaking of formal regulations and protocols and the municipal officials’ non-enforcement together, informalized the municipal administration of this project.

The enactment of socio-technical transition pathways: A reformulated typology and a comparative multi-level analysis of the German and UK low-carbon electricity transitions (1990–2014)

This paper aims to make two contributions to the sustainability transitions literature, in particular the Geels and Schot (2007. Res. Policy 36(3), 399) transition pathways typology. First, it reformulates and differentiates the typology through the lens of endogenous enactment, identifying the main patterns for actors, formal institutions, and technologies. Second, it suggests that transitions may shift between pathways, depending on struggles over technology deployment and institutions. Both contributions are demonstrated with a comparative analysis of unfolding low-carbon electricity transitions in Germany and the UK between 1990–2014. The analysis shows that Germany is on a substitution pathway, enacted by new entrants deploying small-scale renewable electricity technologies (RETs), while the UK is on a transformation pathway, enacted by incumbent actors deploying large-scale RETs. Further analysis shows that the German transition has recently shifted from a ‘stretch-and-transform’ substitution pathway to a ‘fit-and-conform’ pathway, because of a fightback from utilities and altered institutions. It also shows that the UK transition moved from moderate to substantial incumbent reorientation, as government policies became stronger. Recent policy changes, however, substantially downscaled UK renewables support, which is likely to shift the transition back to weaker reorientation.

Do Territorial Control and the Loss of Territory Determine the use of Indiscriminate Violence by Incumbent Actors? An Examination of the Syrian Civil War in Aleppo over 45 weeks.

This study tests the ‘control-collaboration’ model detailed by Stathis Kalyvas in The Logic of Violence in Civil War (2006). The control-collaboration model makes various theoretical claims on the relationship between territorial control and the use and motivations of violence (whether selective or indiscriminate). This study tests two of the key claims made in the model: 1. There is an inverse relationship between level of territorial control and the use of indiscriminate violence; and, 2. The loss off territory encourages the use of indiscriminate violence. Using data on civilian and child deaths taken from the ‘Syrian Martyr Database’, this study examines the relationship between territorial control and territorial loss, and the use of indiscriminate violence by incumbent (Syrian state) forces. Examining the levels of territorial control/loss and the extent of civilian and child casualties in Aleppo, Syria, results of the study largely support the theoretical assumptions outlined by Kalyvas.

Why more sustainable cements failed so far? Disruptive innovations and their barriers in a basic industry

The development of more sustainable cements is a challenging but urgent venture. Demand-oriented knowledge formation and the reliance on existing prescriptive standards impede progress towards more sustainable alternatives to conventional cements. None-the-less the last years saw the emergence of a number of technology based start-ups with ambitions to introduce new low-carbon cements as alternatives to traditional Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). An overall analysis of the Technological Innovation System for cement technology is conducted. This is extended with an investigation of how three start-ups, Celitement, Novacem and Calera perform within this environment. The implementation of new materials requires new types of collaboration between R&D and market actors, a combination of synthetic with the existing analytic knowledge base and redefinition of standards and norms. Moreover, a close cooperation of incumbent actors along the construction value chain is precondition for success of disruptive innovations.

The cross-border hostile bid fight between Scania in Sweden and the two German companies MAN and Volkswagen: institutional change and the mandatory bid rule

International hostile takeovers provide a unique context for studying how corporate governance mechanisms migrate across countries. This paper is prompted by a case study of the cross-border takeover fight between the target companies Scania (Sweden) and MAN (Germany) and the involvement of the owners of Volkswagen, Porsche (both Germany) and Investor (Sweden), 1999–2014. It reveals how incumbent owners in Germany and Sweden—two countries with a history of corporate control through blockholdings, corporatist-governance, state control (Germany) and multiple voting shares (Sweden)—manage to take advantage of the minority shareholders through arbitraging the differences in implementation of a new governance device across borders. The study focuses in particular on the mandatory bid rule (MBR) that forces a shareholder who passes a certain threshold of ownership to bid for the rest of the shares. The study reveals over twenty incidents of breaches of the idea of the MBR, to the detriment of minority shareholders. Building on institutional theory and sociology, the study provides useful insight into how incumbent actors may use bargaining power to capture a new regulation and circumvent it. Furthermore, the case illustrates the importance of legitimacy in the efforts to converge corporate governance systems. Thirdly, it adds to the critique of the mandatory bid rule in countries with a governance system supporting blockholders. Overall, the study raises a number of important issues regarding how national politics shape corporate governance and responds to new actors and coalitions of actors entering the scene. A convergence of takeover regulation not compatible with the legal framework might result in a less efficient than anticipated outcome of the market for corporate control. These results are consistent with the institutional theory perspective that key actors may have a vested interest in resisting change.

The Cross-Border Hostile Bid between Sweden's Scania and Germany's MAN and Volkswagen: Institutional Change and the Mandatory Bid Rule

International hostile takeovers provide a unique context for studying how corporate governance mechanisms migrate across countries. This paper is prompted by a case study of the cross-border takeover fight between the target companies Scania (Sweden) and MAN (Germany) and the involvement of the owners of Volkswagen, Porsche (both Germany) and Investor (Sweden), 1999-2014. It reveals how incumbent owners in Germany and Sweden - two countries with a history of corporate control through blockholdings, corporatist-governance, state control (Germany) and multiple voting shares (Sweden) - manage to take advantage of the minority shareholders through arbitraging the differences in implementation of a new governance device across borders. The study focuses in particular on the mandatory bid rule (MBR) that forces a shareholder who passes a certain threshold of ownership to bid for the rest of the shares. The study reveals over twenty incidents of breaches of the idea of the MBR, to the detriment of minority shareholders. Building on institutional theory and sociology, the study provides useful insight into how incumbent actors may use bargaining power to capture a new regulation and circumvent it. Furthermore, the case illustrates the importance of legitimacy in the efforts to converge corporate governance systems. Thirdly, it adds to the critique of the mandatory bid rule in countries with a governance system supporting blockholders. Overall, the study raises a number of important issues regarding how national politics shape corporate governance and responds to new actors and coalitions of actors entering the scene. A convergence of takeover regulation not compatible with the legal framework might result in a less efficient than anticipated outcome of the market for corporate control. These results are consistent with the institutional theory perspective that key actors may have a vested interest in resisting change.

Trojan horses in transitions: A dialectical perspective on innovation ‘capture’

As current sustainability challenges are increasingly acknowledged to be of a persistent and systemic nature, sustainability transitions are pursued as likewise systemic solutions. Attempts at such systemic innovations have frequently been seen to become ‘captured’ by incumbent actors, however. As such neutralizing or even perverting co-optation reveals the tense power relations involved, capture is a key dimension of sustainability transition politics. This article argues that capture need not be considered as undesirable per se, however. Against prevalent idealist understandings, a dialectical understanding of innovation capture is developed. This perspective elicits two often neglected aspects of capture, namely its ambiguity and its longitudinal development. Invoking insights from the sociology of translation, it is highlighted how innovation attempts are translated by situated actors, who strategically emphasize or downplay the elements of the innovation that fit their ambitions. Through the typical alternation of radicalizing and domesticating appropriations, it is shown how capture may even turn out favourable to capture ‘victims’ and their envisioned transitions. Comparing four system innovation processes in the Dutch traffic management field, it is shown how transition politics unfold around Trojan horses. Being equipped with latent transformative force, these seemingly innocuous innovations are even meant to be captured.