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This paper analyses how technological and sectoral context structures influence the functional pattern of a focal technological innovation system (TIS), focusing on value chain interdependencies. Through a case study of the ‘embryonic’ bio-succinate from mixed food waste TIS in Sweden, we show that all identified context structures exert both negative and positive influences on TIS functions by influencing resource availability and accessibility, market conditions and the wider selection environment. Contextual influences result from interdependencies throughout the value chain, but in contrast to previous studies, direct structural overlaps are not as relevant as competition for resources, markets and policy support. Competition does not only come from the regime but also from other related TISs and sectors. The study also confirms the importance of contextual influences from the international TIS. These findings suggest that a wide perspective on context structures and selection pressures should be considered in future research.

This paper answers recent calls to give more attention to the business strategies of incumbent actors regarding innovation and socio-technical transitions. We map the solar business model adoption of 30 Swedish electric utility incumbents and examine to what extent it can be explained by the strategic fit with the utilities' established business models, corporate strategies, and external environment. We find that all three dimensions need to be considered in order to explain adoption. Alignment with the established business model is mainly important concerning activities, resources, and partnerships, and utilities also re-configure solar models to increase this alignment (e.g. through outsourcing). However, it is not the main driver for adoption. Instead, incentives and pressures related to corporate strategies and external environment induce or block retailers from adopting solar models. By demonstrating the importance of strategic fit, these findings provide a more nuanced understanding of industry incumbent's strategies in relation to emerging technologies.

Sociotechnical transitions are complex processes that imply far-reaching technological, institutional and cultural changes. Transition intermediaries have emerged as potentially powerful actors and entities to speed up transitions. As much previous literature on intermediaries in transitions has focused on emergence, in this special issue, we focus on intermediaries in the acceleration phase of transitions. The contributions address different domains, with specific focus on different parts of the energy production and consumption system. The contributions cover three themes: intermediary actors in the diffusion of new solutions, in policy change, and systemic intermediaries. We end by making three observations regarding intermediation in the acceleration of sustainability transitions: new types of stakeholders coming into transition processes requiring new forms of intermediation; contestation and tensions becoming stronger, creating new challenges for intermediaries, and; potential confusion within intermediary actors.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics and activities of intermediaries that are involved in innovation diffusion and, thus, contribute to the acceleration of sustainability transitions. The paper develops a taxonomy of four types of diffusion intermediaries based on official firm registry data on intermediaries involved in renewable electricity technologies in Sweden, which differ from each other in terms of business activity width and sectoral coverage. An analysis of the intermediaries’ business descriptions shows that: (1) most intermediaries are not exclusively involved in intermediation and many are active in several sectors, (2) the relative importance of different intermediation activities varies between different types of intermediaries, and (3) diffusion intermediation has a technology-specific component. These findings imply that researchers and policy makers should not treat diffusion intermediaries as a homogeneous collective. Moreover, there might be an (unexploited) potential for intermediaries and policy makers to exploit cross-sectoral learning.

The purpose of this paper is to identify key challenges that national policymakers face in trying to translate transformative innovation policy (TIP) theory into policy practice. We focus on the case of the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova’s attempt to translate its TIP-related innovation perspective into the policy practice of the Swedish Innovation Partnership Programme (IPP). By means of a discourse perspective, we identify two key discourses and one institution influencing Vinnova’s translation process. In addition, we describe four key challenges that Vinnova faces in this translation process relating to (i) the involvement of relevant stakeholders, (ii) overcoming a dominant discourse, (iii) time constraints of an institutionalized parliamentary system, and (iv) realizing policy coordination ambitions. This study adds to previous literature in identifying dominant discourses or institutional structures as a key barrier for change. Its contribution is to show how transformative translation challenges are played out in a national-level context.

This paper investigates how business and innovation strategies explain companies responses to transformational pressures in a mature industry. The analytical framework combines two perspectives on business and innovation strategies: competitive position and resource position. Based on an embedded case study of eight companies in the Swedish pulp and paper industry, the paper contributes to previous innovation literature by connecting companies innovation responses to their business and innovation strategies. Most notably, it reveals a new type of ambidextrous innovation strategy, i.e. "market-driven exploitation", and shows that the responses by incumbent companies in the pulp and paper industry are the result of deliberate and justifiable strategic choices rather than path dependency and inertia. The study also confirms the value of integrating the two perspectives on strategy. On the one hand, the explanations provided by each perspective overlap with the other, so that they together provide a more nuanced understanding of the companies choices and activities. On the other hand, the perspectives complement each other, so that one perspective explains observations that cannot be explained by the other. The results of the paper inform both managers and policy makers about the trade-offs involved in changing a strategic direction while retaining core capabilities. Funding Agencies|Swedish Energy AgencySwedish Energy Agency [2016003227]

It has become increasingly clear that a transition to low-carbon energy systems, including a widespread diffusion of renewable energy technologies (RETs), is necessary for the world to han ...

Finding ways to encourage investments in renewable electricity production is crucial to reach a transition to a sustainable energy system. While in the energy policy literature, investments are usually explained by economic or regulatory policies, recent studies have suggested that some investors are boundedly rational and may respond differently to policies. In this paper, a framework is proposed to make a more complete analysis of the institutional demands influencing emerging investors in renewable electricity production. Based on 35 cases, both formal and informal demands were identified and their impact on emerging investors behavior was analyzed. Results show that besides formal institutional demands, emerging investors were influenced by their task environment and by various informal demands which originated in investors collective and internal contexts. However, different investors were affected by different institutional demands. They also responded in different ways to the same demands; while some perceived a specific demand as imposing, others regarded it as inducing. These findings provide a better understanding of the institutional forces affecting emerging investors in renewable electricity. The paper suggests new policies to handle the heterogeneity of investors and opens up for a new panorama of informal policy channels, where network effects can be utilized to trigger emerging investors decisions. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Funding Agencies|Swedish Energy Agencys AES programme [33685-1]

Maritime transport faces increasing pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to be in accordance with the Paris Agreement. For this to happen, low- and zero-carbon energy solutions need to be developed. In this paper we draw on sustainability transition literature and introduce the technological innovation system (TIS) framework to the field of maritime transportation research. The TIS approach analytically distinguishes between different innovation system functions that are important for new technologies to develop and diffuse beyond an early phase of experimentation. This provides a basis for technology-specific policy recommendations. We apply the TIS framework to the case of battery-electric and hydrogen energy solutions for coastal maritime transport in Norway. Whereas both battery-electric and hydrogen solutions have developed rapidly, the former is more mature and has a strong momentum. Public procurement and other policy instruments have been crucial for developments to date and will be important for these technologies to become viable options for shipping more generally. © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

In recent years, the technological innovation system (TIS) framework and its ‘functions approach’ has reached widespread diffusion among innovation scholars, especially those interested in sustainability transitions. It has so far been used frequently in studies of emerging sustainable technologies in the energy and transport sectors. This chapter provides some conceptual clarification regarding the functions framework, reviews the empirical findings of previous TIS studies and identifies topics to explore in future research. The review shows that a detailed understanding of the underlying mechanisms of some of the functions (‘entrepreneurial experimentation’, ‘market formation’ and ‘development of positive externalities’) is largely missing. More in-depth, qualitative analyses is therefore needed to identify causal chains of events within TISs. The review also reveals that the functions framework is not easily applicable to pure diffusion contexts, which suggests that the TIS framework should be supplemented by a ‘diffusion system’ framework.

This paper focuses on diffusion-oriented innovation intermediaries (“diffusion intermediaries”), i.e. actors that function as brokers between technology adopters and the providers of resources needed to implement a new technology that is available more or less “off-the-shelf”. It investigates how such actors create value for adopters of new technologies as well as the trade-offs they face. An interview-based, qualitative survey of 14 Swedish consultants and project developers involved in solar PV and wind power reveals that diffusion intermediaries create value mainly through technology transfer and coordination of various actors throughout the planning and implementation of turnkey projects. There is evidence of trade-offs related to value capture as well as between different value dimensions (e.g. between quality control and legitimacy). These findings have important implications for the design of strategies and policies to leverage value creation and handle trade-offs to avoid negative effects on projects, companies, and the overall diffusion of cleaner technologies.

This paper investigates to what extent and how an exploitation-oriented innovation logic can enable innovations characterised by a high degree of newness. The paper is based on an embedded case study of 11 innovation initiatives by the Swedish pulp and paper companies and uses a multi-dimensional framework that takes into account both product and process innovation dimensions as well as multiple stages in the value chain. The results show that the studied initiatives are characterised by new to the companies or new to the industry products and processes in the primary or final steps in the value chain (or both). It is also shown that such high degrees of novelty can be the result of an exploitation innovation logic, where novelty is enabled and facilitated by unchanged or slightly modified products and processes in other parts of the value chain. It can therefore be concluded that exploitation strategies can contribute to more than incremental innovation outcomes and, consequently, that mature industries hold considerably higher innovation potential than the previous literature assumes.

This paper analyses public support and argues that supply does not match demand in terms of the support needs of different types of new technology-based firms (NTBFs). The demand side of public support to NTBFs is analysed by developing a typology of NTBFs, based on venture origin and degree of innovativeness. Each types characteristics, challenges and support needs are identified. The supply side is analysed in terms of the goals, instruments and level of aggregation of the two main policy areas that provide support for NTBFs: small and medium-sized enterprise policy and science, technology and innovation policy. Finally, the demand and supply sides are compared and three main shortcomings of existing public support to NTBFs are identified. This paper makes a twofold contribution: first, the typology gives guidelines for policy-makers with respect to the support needs of the NTBFs. Second, it identifies shortcomings in existing public support and recommends improvements.

To explain the development of multi-technology companies and industries where several alternative technologies co-exist and interact over long periods, this article suggests an extension of path dependency theory by providing a conceptualization of the path notion that incorporates the theoretical possibility of multiple paths and path interaction. The conceptualization is applied to a patent study of three leading companies in the lighting industry: General Electric, Osram/Siemens, and Philips. The study shows technology development patterns that are characterized by strong persistence, both within each path and across the whole technology field. These results demonstrate that multiple technological paths can co-exist in companies and industries, characterized by simultaneous long-term presence of several technologies. In such cases, path interaction takes place both between co-existing paths and when new, radically different paths are created. Although further studies are needed to identify the underlying self-reinforcing mechanisms, there is a clear indication that technological path dependency is not restricted to unitary progression patterns, as implied by previous conceptualizations.

The diffusion of renewable electricity technologies (RETs) has to speed up for countries to reach their, often ambitious, targets for renewable energy generation. This requires a large number of actors – including individuals, companies and other organizations – to adopt RETs. Policies will most likely be needed to induce adoption, but there is limited knowledge about what motivates RET adoption. The purpose of this paper is to complement and expand the available empirical evidence regarding motives to adopt RETs through a survey to over 600 RET adopters in Sweden. The main finding of the study is that there are many different motives to adopt RETs and that RET adopters are a heterogeneous group with regard to motives. Although environmental concerns, interest in the technology, access to an RE resource and prospects to generate economic revenues are important motives in general, adopters differ with regard to how large importance they attach to the same motive and each adopter can also have several different motives to adopt. There are also differences in motives between adopter categories (especially independent power producers vs. individuals and diversified companies) and between RETs (especially wind power vs. solar power). This implies that a variety of policy instruments might be needed to induce further adoption of a variety of RETs by a variety of adopter categories.

This paper argues (1) that technology-specific policies are necessary if we are to meet the climate challenge and (2) that a main contribution of innovation system (IS) analysis to the study of sustainability transitions is that it allows policy makers to identify the processes and components in a system where intervention is likely to matter most. We demonstrate that an IS framework can identify a diverse set of system weaknesses in the field of environmental innovation and identify five venues for further research that can help strengthen the framework and improve its application to environmental innovations.

Slow and complicated wind power planning and permitting procedures have been a large obstacle for wind power diffusion in Sweden and other countries. This paper complements previous siting-oriented literature with a planning perspective on these problems. The focus is two national planning instruments implemented in Sweden in the early 2000s: a national planning target and an appointment of areas of national interest for wind power. The paper identifies different types of conflicts of interest related to wind power - in addition to the conflict between wind power as a national public interest and various local private interests - and analyses the impact of the national planning instruments on the handling of these conflicts in the land-use planning process in the County of Ostergotland. The analysis shows that the planning target actually made local planning officials even more inclined to treat wind power as a private rather than a public interest and that the method used to identify areas of national interest of wind power forced wind power to compete with the combined strengths of all other public interest. The planning instruments thus left wind power to fight an uphill battle rather than to meet other interests face-to-face on a level playing field. Original Publication:Anna Bergek, Levelling the playing field? The influence of national wind power planning instruments on conflicts of interests in a Swedish county, 2010, ENERGY POLICY, (38), 5, 2357-2369.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2009.12.023Copyright: Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam.http://www.elsevier.com/

In the European policy debate, tradable green certificates (TGC) have been suggested to be a superior regulatory framework for promoting the diffusion of renewable electricity technologies. The purpose of this paper is to assess the performance of the Swedish TGC system, contributing to the European debate on the suitability of different types of frameworks. The expectations of the TGC system were that it would: (a) be effective in terms of increasing the supply of "green" electricity; (b) do this in a cost effective manner (from both a social and a consumer perspective): (c) generate an equitable distribution of costs and benefits and (d) drive technical change. So far, it has performed adequately in terms of effectiveness and social cost effectiveness. However, consumer costs have been substantially higher than expected, very large rents are generated and, at best, it contributes marginally to technical change. Thus. a TGC framework should be selected if the overriding concern is to minimize short term social costs of reaching a certain goal with a high degree of predictability. However, it cannot be expected to also drive technical change, keep consumer costs down and be equitable. Such trade-offs need to be revealed and not obscured by analysts. Original Publication:Anna Bergek and Staffan Jacobsson, Are tradable green certificates a cost-efficient policy driving technical change or a rent-generating machine? Lessons from Sweden 2003-2008, 2010, ENERGY POLICY, (38), 3, 1255-1271.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2009.11.001Copyright: Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam.http://www.elsevier.com/

This paper presents a framework for guiding policy-makers intervening in emerging innovation systems in 'catching-up' countries. The process whereby the central policy issues are identified rests on the notion that there are seven key processes, or 'functions', involved in the formation of such systems and that these processes can be empirically studied. A 'functional approach' is argued to be helpful in finding 'system weaknesses' that can act as focusing mechanisms for policy-makers. An illustrative case from Germany is followed by an analysis of emerging innovation systems in catching-up countries, in particular Brazil, Korea and Chile. This is an electronic version of an article published in:Staffan Jacobsson and Anna Bergek, A framework for guiding policy makers intervening in emerging innovation systems in 'catching up' countries, 2007, European Journal of Development Research, (18), 4, 687-707.European Journal of Development Research is available online at informaworldTM: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09578810601094902Copyright: Taylor & Francishttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/default.asp

This paper studies self-reinforcing mechanisms in multi-technology industries, i.e. industries in which technological lock-in does not occur and several technologies continue to coexist. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what kind of self-reinforcing mechanisms can be present in such industries and explain how multiple paths can coexist and interact in a context of self-reinforcement and, ultimately, path dependency. Building on the empirical example of the lighting industry, the paper shows that all previously recognized types of self-reinforcing mechanisms can be present in a multi-technology industry. However, in addition to the path-internal positive feedbacks and cross-path negative externalities identified in single-path settings, multi-technology industries also experience positive cross-path externalities that create a symbiotic relationship between alternatives and allow for the reproduction of the same development pattern across technologies. Due to the existence of such non-negative technology interactions, multi-technology industries can be path dependent while still retaining technological variety. Funding Agencies|Riksbankens Jubileumsfond via the KITE research program [M2006-0231]

Various types of policy instruments have been implemented to reduce local and global emissions, but the impact on innovation of different instruments has received less attention. This paper reviews empirical studies of the innovation impact of four main types of policy instruments in two high-emitting sectors. The conclusions are threefold. (1) Policy plays a key role for the development and diffusion of environmental innovation in the studied sectors. (2) Different types of instruments promote different types of innovations: general economic instruments has primarily encouraged incremental innovation, general regulatory instruments has enforced improvements based on modular innovation, and technology-specific instruments appears to have been needed to support the development and deployment of radically new technologies. (3) All types of policy instruments face challenges in design and implementation: understanding the selection impact of the chosen instruments, implementing increasing stringency levels, committing to an appropriate scale, and safeguarding policy stability.

Preface G. Marletto. Part I - A dynamic and systemic analysis of economic change: 1. Agency and economic change K. Safarzynska 2. Technologies, markets and economic change M. Amendola and J.-L. Gaffard 3. An institutional/evolutionary framework of economic change G. Marletto Part II - Institutional/evolutionary views on environmental policy: 4. Governing the environment: the institutional economics approach A. Vatn 5. Institutional/evolutionary economics and environmental policy G. Hodgson 6. Managing the transition towards sustainable regimes: a coevolutionary approach T. Foxon Part III - Regime change: three case studies: 7. Moving away from the motor car: the challenge of transition to low-carbon vehicles J. Kohler 8. Grassroots innovations and socio-technical system change: energy retrofitting of the residential housing stock H.S. Brown and P. Vergragt 9. The governance of technological transitions: the case of renewable energy A. Genus Part IV -Creating a sustainable economy: 10. The role of entrepreneurship and markets for sustainable innovation A. Bergek 11. Unlocking the unsustainable techno-institutional complex G. Unruh and P. del Rio 12. Ten memos for effective policies G. Marletto

Transforming energy systems to fulfill the needs of a low-carbon economy requires large investments in renewable electricity production (RES-E). Recent literature underlines the need to take a closer look at the composition of the RES-E investor group in order to understand the motives and investment processes of different types of investors. However, existing energy policies generally consider RES-E investments made on a regional or national level, and target investors who evaluate their RES-E investments according to least-cost high-profit criteria. We present empirical evidence to show that RES-E investments are made by a heterogeneous group of investors, that a variety of investors exist and that their formation varies among the different types of renewable sources. This has direct implications for our understanding of the investment process in RES-E and for the study of motives and driving forces of RES-E investors. We introduce a multi-dimensional framework for analyzing differences between categories of investors, which not only considers to the standard economic dimension which is predominant in the contemporary energy literature, but also considers the entrepreneurship, innovation-adoption and institutional dimensions. The framework emphasizes the influence of four main investor-related factors on the investment process which should be studied in future research: motives, background, resources and personal characteristics. Highlights► The RES-E investor group is heterogeneous. ► Investors with no traditional background within electricity production make the majority of RES-E investments in Sweden. ► Different types of RES-E investors invest in different renewables. ► A standard economic perspective is not sufficient to understand emerging RES-E investors. ► Motives, background, resources and personal characteristics of RES-E investors matter. NYEL - Nya investerare i förnybar elproduktion

The creative destruction of existing industries as a consequence of discontinuous technological change is a central theme in the literature on industrial innovation and technological development. Established competence-based and market-based explanations of this phenomenon argue that incumbents are seriously challenged only by ‘competence-destroying’ or ‘disruptive’ innovations, which make their existing knowledge base or business models obsolete and leave them vulnerable to attacks from new entrants. This paper challenges these arguments. With detailed empirical analyses of the automotive and gas turbine industries, we demonstrate that these explanations overestimate the ability of new entrants to destroy and disrupt established industries and underestimate the capacity of incumbents to perceive the potential of new technologies and integrate them with existing capabilities. Moreover, we show how intense competition in the wake of technological discontinuities, driven entirely by incumbents, may instead result in late industry shakeouts. We develop and extend the notion of ‘creative accumulation’ as a way of conceptualizing the innovating capacity of the incumbents that appear to master such turbulence. Specifically, we argue that creative accumulation requires firms to handle a triple challenge of simultaneously (a) fine-tuning and evolving existing technologies at a rapid pace, (b) acquiring and developing new technologies and resources and (c) integrating novel and existing knowledge into superior products and solutions. Knowledge Integration and Innovation in Transnational Enterprise

Technology-based firms continue to compete primarily on innovation, and one continuously required to present new solutions to an exacting market. As technological complexity and specialization inte ...

Technology-based firms continue to compete primarily on innovation, and are continuously required to present new solutions to an exacting market. As technological complexity and specialization inte ...

This chapter discusses an approach to the rationale and operations of innovation policy from a 'systems' perspective, focusing on functions performed by an innovation system. The systems approach stems from a key insight of innovation studies, which is that innovation by firms cannot be understood purely in terms of independent decisionmaking at the level of the firm. Firms' strategies are central to innovation, but strategic options are shaped and constrained by environmental factors such as collaborative patterns, regularory systems and customary practices which persist in systemic ways and which influence how innovation may occur. These environmental conditions are often specific to technological, regional or national contexts, but they are also dynamic: their forms of operation change with political conditions, changing technological opportunities, economic integration processes and so on.

Technological learning is a key driver behind the improvement of energy technologies and subsequent reduction of production costs. Understanding how and why production costs for energy technologies decline, and whether they will continue to do so in the future, is of crucial importance for policy makers, industrial stakeholders and scientists alike. This timely and informative book therefore provides a comprehensive review of technological development and cost reductions for renewable energy, clean fossil fuel and energy-efficient demand-side technologies. It responds to the need for a quality-controlled data set of experience curves, including assessment of measurement methodology, technological knowledge and associated cost. The expert contributors present a thorough overview and discussion of the pitfalls of applying the experience curve approach, including aspects such as geographical system boundaries, whether the slope of the experience curves is constant or not, statistical error and sensitivity analysis of experience curves, and whether the experience curve approach can be utilized to quantify improvements in energy efficiency. A clear set of recommendations for the use of the experience curve approach is also prescribed. Providing a significant contribution to the current literature on energy and climate models, scenario analysis, and methodological lessons on experience curves, this book will strongly appeal to academics and students in the areas focusing on energy and public sector economics. Policy makers in these fields will also find the book to be of great interest.

Based on the critical case of ABB, this paper questions the relevance of using patents with multiple inventors from different countries (“cross-country patents”) as an indicator of international R&D collaboration. The study shows that less than half of ABB’s cross-country patents are the result of international R&D collaboration as described by one of the more inclusive definitions found in previous literature. Only a third of the patents are the result of joint R&D activities between different MNC subsidiaries or firms. We also discuss the implications of our study for the assignment of patents to countries based on inventor addresses.

In order to reap competitive advantage from innovation, a firms technology activities should square with its technology strategy - but how do technology strategies relate to activities and financial performance in relevant business areas? This paper investigates this question by means of a comparison between two leading firms in the electrical engineering industry: ABB and General Electric. We show that substantial performance differences between these companies in the power generation field are related to differences in their espoused technology strategies (as indicated by statements in annual reports) and technology activities (as indicated by patenting) and the degree of alignment between these. This is an electronic version of an article published in: Anna Bergek, Christian Berggren and Fredrik Tell , Do technology strategies matter? A comparison of two electrical engineering corporations, 1988-1998, 2009, TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS and STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT, (21), 4, 445-470. TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS and STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT is available online at informaworldTM: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537320902818744 Copyright: Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/default.asp

The recent EU Commission proposal for promoting the supply of power from renewable energy sources was originally based on a pan-European, harmonised tradable green certificate (TGC) scheme. We Suggest, on the basis of a multi-disciplinary analysis, that a pan-EU TGC system is not the way forward for Europe. It is vital that the Commission (and the majority of Member States) avoids implementation of such policy designs put forward by a coalition of vested interests. They should instead look at, and act upon, the available evidence from those countries that have experimented with TGCs (e.g. Flanders, UK and Sweden) and design policies that stand a better chance of meeting the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency and equity. In particular, the policies must enable EU to meet the immense innovation/industrialisation challenge by inducing the development of a capital goods industry that can, eventually, diffuse a broad range of technologies that use renewable energy sources. Only then we can acquire an ability to implement an industrial revolution in the energy system in a way that broadly meets the criteria of effectiveness and dynamic efficiency. Original Publication:Staffan Jacobsson, Anna Bergek, Dominique Finon, Volkmar Lauber, Catherine Mitchell, David Toke and Aviel Verbruggen , EU renewable energy support policy: Faith or facts?, 2009, ENERGY POLICY, (37), 6, 2143-2146.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2009.02.043Copyright: Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam.http://www.elsevier.com/

Various researchers and policy analysts have made empirical studies of innovation systems in order to understand their current structure and trace their dynamics. However, policy makers often experience difficulties in extracting practical guidelines from studies of this kind. In this paper, we operationalize our previous work on a functional approach to analyzing innovation system dynamics into a practical scheme of analysis for policy makers. The scheme is based on previous literature and our own experience in developing and applying functional thinking. It can be used by policy makers not only to identify the key policy issues but also to set policy goals. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Original Publication:Anna Bergek, S. Jacobsson, B. Carlsson, S. Lindmark and A. Rickne, Analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems: A scheme of analysis, 2008, Research Policy, (37), 3, 407-429.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2007.12.003Copyright: Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam.http://www.elsevier.com/

This article focuses on technological discontinuities and late shakeouts in mature industries. The empirical case is combined cycle gas turbine technology in the power generation industry, where two of four main incumbents (GE, ABB, Siemens, and Westinghouse) exited the industry after several years of competition. We show that the vast differences in firm performance are strongly related to variation in technological capabilities, such as sourcing and integration of knowledge from related industries and after-launch problem solving. The findings from this case may also be of general interest for studies of dynamics in other mature, complex industries. This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Industrial and corporate change following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version:Anna Bergek, Fredrik Tell, Christian Berggren and J. Watson, Technological capabilities and late shakeouts: Industrial dynamics in the advanced gas turbine industry, 1987-2002, 2008, Industrial and Corporate Change, (17), 2, 335-392.is available on-line at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/icc/dtn005Copyright: Oxford University Presshttp://www.oxfordjournals.org/

Incubators have become a ubiquitous phenomenon in many parts of the world and are viewed as a tool for promoting the development of technology-based growth firms. Considering the large faith and the considerable amounts of money invested in incubators, the identification of best practice incubator models is of importance. Previous incubator assessment literature has tended to emphasise the measurement of incubator outcomes. In this paper, we argue that best practice identification requires a holistic approach, where the goals of the incubators are taken into account and the performance of different incubators are put in relation to their incubator models. In this context, the aim of this paper is to develop a framework that can serve as a basis for identifying best practice incubator models and for more rigorous evaluations of incubator performance. The framework suggested includes three distinguishing model components: selection, business support and mediation. We distinguish between idea-focused selection and entrepreneur-focused selection as well as between “picking-the-winners” and “survival-of-the-fittest” selection. Business support is seen as a continuum from “laissez-faire” to “strong intervention”. Mediation strategies vary in terms of the type of innovation system in focus: technological, regional or cluster. The framework is applied to 16 Swedish incubators. Original Publication:Anna Bergek and Charlotte Norrman, Incubator best practice: A framework, 2008, Technovation, (28), 1-2, 20-28.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2007.07.008Copyright: Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam.http://www.elsevier.com/Postprint available at: Linköping University Electronic Presshttp://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-13255

This paper addresses the issue of R&D internationalisation of two multinationals in the electro-technical industry (GE and ABB), by means of a patent data analysis. The overwhelming majority of both companies R&D activities are concentrated in Western Europé and North America. The locational overlap between the two firms' activities is small. These results are consistent with findings from earlier studies that (1) there is little evidence to suggest that the 'production' of technology is globalised in a general sense and (2)that tapping knowledge from an industry's global lead location plays a very limited role in foreign R&D investments. Original Publication:Anna Bergek and Christian Berggren, Technological Internationalisation in the Electro-Technical Industry: A Cross-company comparison of patenting patterns 1986-2000, 2005, Research Policy, (33), 9, 1285-1306.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2004.09.004Copyright: Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam.http://www.elsevier.com/

This paper analyses the development and diffusion of technologies that utilize renewable energy sources in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.The analysis enlarges the life cycle model of industry evolution to one where the focus is on the formation and evolution of new technological systems. Particular focus is on explaining success and failures in shifting from a formative phase into one characterized by positive feedbacks. A set of challenges is identified for policy makers attempting to influence the process of transforming the energy sector. This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Industrial and corporate change following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version:Staffan Jacobsson and Anna Bergek, Transforming the Energy Sector: The evolution of technological systems in renewable energy technology, 2004, Industrial and corporate change, (13), No. 5, 815-849.is available on-line at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/icc/dth032Copyright: Oxford University Press

The objective of this paper is to compare the evolution of the wind turbine industry in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Four factors stand out in explaining the relative success of the German industry: (1) creation of variety in an early phase, (2) establishment of legitimacy of wind energy, (3) the employment of advanced market creation policies in a later phase and (4) the use of industrial policy to favour the domestic industry. Implications for policy include fostering legitimacy for the new technology and creating powerful, predictable and persistent economic incentives.

An influential perspective on industrial innovation has focused on the impact of discontinuous technological change on existing industry structures. This perspective has showed how periods of incre...

This comprehensive Handbook explores the interactions between the practice, policy, and theory of innovation. The goal is twofold: to increase insight into this dynamic process, searching for options to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of both policy and innovative practice, and to identify conceptual or empirical lacunae and questions that can guide future research. The Handbook is a joint project from 24 prominent scholars in the field, and although each chapter reveals the insights of its respective authors, two overarching theoretical perspectives provide unique coherence and consistency throughout.