Understanding Sustainability Transitions: The Perspective of Innovators in incumbent firms - A case study of the roles and challenges faced by innovators and incumbent firms

Abstract

Creating green sustainable innovation is a step in the right direction towards a sustainable future. It is however not sure that incremental improvements will be enough, it is instead called for radical shifts in socio-technical systems, so called sustainability transitions. Sustainability transitions research aims to create an understanding of how we could transform into creating a sustainable future. Transition research tends to use a holistic view in order to understand the macro perspective, but in order to understand the macro perspective, it is necessary to understand the micro perspectives within. This research is therefore focused on the micro perspective of innovators, and their role in sustainability transitions. The purpose of this research is to enlighten the perspective of innovators in relation to sustainability transitions. Sustainability transitions are fundamental shifts in industries, socio-technical systems and the society towards a sustainable production and consumption. This research uses the multi-level perspective of sustainability transitions to fulfill the research objective of understanding and enlightening the perspective of innovators. The multi-level perspective consists of three perspectives; niches, regimes and landscape. This research is focused on innovators within the regimes, currently working for large incumbent firms. The aim of using the multi-level perspective is to understand transitions and the role and symbioses between the perspectives, focusing on innovators. This research is based on a qualitative research strategy, aiming to create a deeper understanding of the innovators as the research subject. This is done with a multiple case study, with innovators as the case objectives. The aim is therefore to study the innovators in their natural environment within large incumbent firms. The data is collected based on a purposive sample, to find the most appropriate research objective that can contribute to the purpose. The data were collected with semi-structured interviews of the research objectives, that we recorded and reviewed. The data were later analyzed with the help of thematic analysis, in order to reduce, interpret and identify patterns and relations in the data. The gathered data were then analyzed with the help of the data from systematic literature review in an abductive approach. The aim with this methodology is to find the best explanation of sustainability transition, and deepen the understanding, with the help of both previous research and gathered data. While it historically has been argued that incumbent actors of the regimes are resistant to changes, increased pressure could force them into transitions. The findings of this research suggest that incumbent firms therefore could act as followers to both niches and landscape changes. Furthermore, innovators can act as both influencers, and followers within their organization, it is however clear that innovators are vital in enabling organizations to create changes. Sustainability is highly affected by tragedy of the common, creating a challenge for incumbent firms. The current regime settings are in favor of them, therefore creating no incentives for changes. While organizations might be resistant to change, management, customers and time create challenges for innovators that are hard to overcome when working with sustainability transitions.