Figure 5 - uploaded by Sebastian Rohe
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
This cumulative dissertation (one framing paper and four individual research papers) analyzes the regional facets of the multi-scalar Technological Innovation System (TIS) around onshore wind. It provides a comprehensive literature review on the geography of the wind energy TIS. Previous research focused on early system dynamics in turbine manufact...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... this typology, industries relate to each other and their evolutionary stages (cf. Figure 5). Solar PV for instance has always been characterized by STI ( ). ...
Context 2
... to capture empirically with the STI/global vs. DUI/local dichotomy. For these activities, the GIS frameworks' distinction between innovation and valuation becomes somewhat blurry empirically, because "know-who" and innovations in project development approaches or business models are directly connected to the creation of resources for valuation. Fig. 5 summarizes the spatial configurations within the GIS for onshore wind energy. The investigation highlighted that resource formation within a GIS has multiple spatial patterns, depending on where -in which place and in which value chain segment -they take ...
Context 3
... this typology, industries relate to each other and their evolutionary stages (cf. Figure 5). Solar PV for instance has always been characterized by STI ( ). ...
Context 4
... to capture empirically with the STI/global vs. DUI/local dichotomy. For these activities, the GIS frameworks' distinction between innovation and valuation becomes somewhat blurry empirically, because "know-who" and innovations in project development approaches or business models are directly connected to the creation of resources for valuation. Fig. 5 summarizes the spatial configurations within the GIS for onshore wind energy. The investigation highlighted that resource formation within a GIS has multiple spatial patterns, depending on where -in which place and in which value chain segment -they take ...
Citations
... These are the places where nation-and countywide decisions are put into practice and where negotiations over collective needs and future visions, and the conflicts they bring along, emerge. Contributions have emphasised the role and relevance of the regional level as part of multi-scalar systems of governance as well as of global innovation systems (Rohe, 2020(Rohe, , 2021). The regional level is therefore a good starting point when it comes to observing and understanding the social dynamics involved in transition processes (cf. ...
This paper explores the dynamics that result in the entrenched positions that can be empirically observed in regions in the context of energy transition. We conduct our analysis along the concept of strategic action fields. Thereby we develop 'Regional Transition Fields' (RTF) that encompass all actors, activities and organisations in a region that share the concern for the transition. This could be any kind of regional transition process, but in this paper, we focus on the regional energy transition. Hence, the actors' shared issue at stake is the future energy mix of the region. All actors that share this concern are considered to be part of the field. Our approach allows us to consider both those actors that promote an energy transition towards more sustainable energy sources and those that oppose it as part of the same field. They are aware of each other, of each other's positions in the field and of the resources involved. We argue that, despite the apparent agreement on the issue at stake, conflicts and tensions arise within that field concerning the rules, regulations, and common reference frames against which behaviours are judged. Based on insights about conflicts in transitions, we argue that processes of adaptation and delimitation continually reshape the structure of the field. In an empirical case study of Northern Hesse in Germany, we identify regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive dimensions of both processes. We thus contribute a perspective on the dynamics of institutionalisation in fields and a more nuanced understanding of the development of entrenched positions in regional energy transitions.
... However, this assessment is based on subjective perceptions from individual researchers and there is, to our knowledge, no systematic comparison of the two concepts. Hence, there have been calls to integrate the debates on acceptance and legitimacy as to better conceptualise social dynamics in rapidly expanding markets for low-carbon energy solutions [11,12]. ...
The large-scale deployment of low-carbon energy technologies is crucial for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ideally limiting climate change. The success of this transition towards a carbon-neutral society depends on how these technologies are perceived by civil society and whether key societal stakeholders support or oppose their roll-out. Two major debates addressing this issue revolve around the concepts of acceptance and legitimacy. Acceptance literature examines the drivers and levels of support of novel technologies and socio-technical systems. Legitimacy literature captures how these technologies are aligned to their institutional environment. Thus far, there is little cross-fertilisation between the two debates. For this contribution, we conducted a systematic literature review of the two research streams to gain a better understanding of how the social dynamics of low-carbon energy technology deployment are conceptualised. Our review involved the analysis of 240 articles from SCOPUS that empirically studied the acceptance or legitimacy of low-carbon energy technologies. Our findings suggest that the two literature strands are indeed rather disconnected-few articles use both concepts conjointly. They further illustrate that both have distinct research foci and intellectual roots. Acceptance studies tend to focus on individual perspectives towards specific technologies and relate these to the individuals' backgrounds. In contrast, legitimacy studies tend to focus on the overall alignment of specific technologies or entire innovation systems with the institutional context. Based on our findings, we propose a framework, to allow for a better understanding of the dynamic interplay between macro-level legitimacy evaluations and micro-level acceptance evaluations.
... Such a disconnect can lead to knowledge losses and volatility in regional markets, which might impede or block the progress of regional energy transitions (Löhr and Mattes 2022). To better understand how regional lead companies are linked to the processes (and potentially outcomes) of energy transitions in specific regions, a systematic dissection of this interrelationship is needed in the transition literature (Rohe 2021). ...
... In this context, regions are viewed as a socially constructed territory situated between the level of municipalities and federal states. For more information on how regions were selected and regional borders were drawn, refer to Rohe (2021). ...
Both place-specific context conditions and the interplay of a variety of actors influence regional energy transitions. Yet, the role of regional lead companies and how they are embedded in regional transitions has not been systematically analysed, even though a lack of embeddedness in their geographical context could possibly impede transitions. In our contribution, we expand transition studies with insights from economic geography and sociology to grasp the embeddedness of regional lead companies in regional transitions along ten indicators. We analyse how intra-organizational and regional factors influence these indicators and the overall degree of embeddedness. Finally, we reflect on how the (dis)embeddedness of companies affects regional energy transitions. Empirically, our analysis is based on a most different case study design, comparing a wind turbine manufacturer and its detached relation to the energy transition around a city in Central Germany with a wind project developer deeply embedded in a rural Northern German district. These findings are mirrored not only in different embeddedness degrees, but also in different types of embeddedness that we term 'transactional' and 'transformational'. By systematically describing the interrelation between organizations and regions, our contribution shows how multifaceted embeddedness is and how closely inner-organizational factors are intertwined with regional transitions.
... Our analysis is based on qualitative case studies (Yin, 2018) on the energy transition in two German regions, Western Lower-Saxony and Northern Hesse, where the investigated networking organizations are located. 5 They are mostly informed by expert interviews and complemented by the analysis of documents such as websites or reports (cf. to Rohe (2021) for more information on our case study approach). Between 2018 and 2022, we carried out a total of 62 interviews in both regions. ...
In transition studies, formal inter-organizational networks - 'networking organizations' - are considered essential for inducing socio-technical change. Yet, there is little research on how their structural composition and role evolve in advanced transitions and which tensions arise over time. We address these gaps by combining insights from network research in social and economic science with transition studies, where networking organizations are conceptualized as intermediaries and elements of Technological Innovation Systems. We synthesize a framework capturing the evolution of and resulting tensions within networking organizations in sustainability transitions. It is applied to two regional energy networking organizations from Germany. We draw on qualitative expert interviews and a complementary social network analysis. We show that networking organizations do not necessarily stabilize once the initial technologies they were centered around become established. Instead, their member base broadens to different sectors. This can lead to tensions over the networking organizations' scope. Tensions also arise from misalignments between 'private' goals of member firms and the 'public' goal of transforming system-level structures. Furthermore, complementary or competing networking organizations might emerge during the transition. We conclude by outlining responses to these tensions, which might help practitioners to maintain the legitimacy of networking organizations and their relevance in the transition.
... While they are often understood as 'collective goods' at the level of the innovation system, they are nevertheless unevenly distributed and not all actors have equal access to them at any place and to any time. This potentially allows for an analysis of power -asking which actors control the formation of and access to system resources -although this issue is often neglected in TIS analyses (Binz and Truffer, 2017;Rohe, 2021). Ultimately, the TIS framework allows researchers to identify system level factors that enable, accelerate, or block the development and diffusion of novel products (Weber and Rohracher, 2012;Wieczorek and Hekkert, 2012). ...
While organic food has increased its market share in conventional food retail, virtually all organic vegetables are still conventionally bred. For decades, organically bred vegetable varieties remained a market niche, despite their socio-ecological benefits. This paper conceptualizes actors and activities around organic breeding as a Technological Innovation System (TIS) and analyzes what prevents these varieties from widely diffusing into conventional supermarkets. The investigated barriers relate to knowledge, market formation, investments, and legitimacy. The study is based on interviews with breeding initiatives and food retailers in Germany. Theoretically, the paper adds an innovation systems-perspective on the diffusion of organic varieties, a blind spot in the emerging debate so far. Furthermore, it contributes to the literature on sustainability transitions by introducing a novel empirical topic to the debate and reframing the TIS framework to analyzing fresh produce. Identifying existing barriers provides suggestions for practitioners seeking to successfully diffuse organic vegetable varieties.
... Commonly studied place-specfic context factors include regional visions and policies, informal localized institutions, natural asset endowments, technological and industrial specializations, and local market formation (Hansen and Coenen, 2015). For onshore wind, this translates to regional wind speeds, topography, population density, spatial development plans, attitudes towards different energy sources, or local demand for renewable energy (Rohe, 2021). This underlines the need for TIS analyses that pay close attention to regional heterogenity. ...
... 4 Following the principles of a structuring qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2019), multiple researchers iteratively coded the transcribed interviews using the software MAXQDA. Based primarily on this material, we compiled extensive case study documents (Yin, 2018) for each region (refer to Rohe (2021) for details on case selection and methodology). An overview of interviewed stakeholders can be found in the annex. ...
Regional innovation policy must not only strive for economic competitiveness, but also push novel and more sustainable technological solutions. The complex and multi-scalar process of developing and diffusing new technologies is captured by the Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) framework. However, the approach neglects regional heterogeneity and lacks a nuanced and systematic understanding of how technological change plays out differently across places. We thus complement TIS with insights from the literature on Regional Innovation Systems (RIS), which offers manifold comparisons and typologies of institutional contexts for regional innovation. We argue that three ideal-typical configurations – localist-grassroots, interactive-networked, and globalist-dirigiste – exist at the intersection between a technological and specific regional innovation system. We discuss how these regional configurations contribute differently to knowledge creation and market formation within the overall TIS and point to the innovation-related challenges they are confronted with. We illustrate our conceptual arguments with a brief comparative case study on three regions in the TIS for onshore wind energy. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature on the geographies of innovation and sustainability transitions, introduces a framework for analyzing regional heterogeneity in TIS, and enables more fine-grained technology- and place-specific policy interventions at the regional level.
While organic food increased its market share in conventional food retail, virtually all organic vegetables are still conventionally bred. For decades, organically bred vegetable varieties remained a market niche, despite their socio-ecological benefits. This paper conceptualizes actors and activities around organic breeding as a Technological Innovation System (TIS) and analyzes what prevents these varieties from widely diffusing into conventional supermarkets. Investigated systemic barriers relate to knowledge, market formation, investments, and legitimacy. The study is based on interviews with food retailers and (commons-based) breeding initiatives across Germany. Theoretically, the paper adds an innovation system perspective on the diffusion of organically bred varieties, a blind spot in the emerging seed commons debate. Furthermore, it contributes to sustainability transitions literature by introducing a novel empirical topic and reframing the TIS framework to analyze agri-food innovations. Identifying barriers and vicious cycles might support practitioners and policymakers seeking to diffuse this agri-food niche.
