Department Environmental Social Sciences

What methods and procedures support transdisciplinary knowledge integration? We address this question by exploring knowledge integration within four thematic synthesis processes of the Swiss National Research Programme 61 Sustainable Water Management (NRP 61). Drawing on literature from inter- and transdisciplinary research, we developed an analytical framework to map different methods and procedures of knowledge integration. We use this framework to characterize the variety of methods and procedures that were combined in the four processes to produce thematic synthesis reports. We suggest that the variety of combinations observed reflects the different objectives and questions that guided the processes of knowledge integration as well as the different roles that leaders assumed in these processes. Although the framework was developed in the course of NRP 61, we consider it as a basis for designing ex ante new synthesis processes by defining and sequencing different synthesis stages and by identifying, for each stage, the contributions of specific scientific and societal actors, the purpose of their contributions, and the methods and procedures supporting their contributions. Used in a formative evaluation process, the framework supports reflection on and adaptation of synthesis processes and also facilitates the generation of new knowledge for designing future processes.

This paper proposes a framework for the analysis of technological innovation processes in transnational contexts. By drawing on existing innovation system concepts and recent elaborations on the globalization of innovation, we develop a multi-scalar conceptualization of innovation systems. Two key mechanisms are introduced and elaborated: the generation of resources in multi-locational subsystems and the establishment of structural couplings among them in a global innovation system (GIS). Based on this conceptualization, we introduce a typology of four generic GIS configurations, building on the innovation mode and valuation system in different industry types. The analytical framework is illustrated with insights from four emerging clean-tech industries. We state that a comprehensive GIS perspective is instrumental for developing a more explanatory stance in the innovation system literature and developing policy interventions that reflect the increasing spatial complexity in the innovation process.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop a typology of management innovations.
Design/methodology/approach - The authors apply a multiple-case (embedded) design, with each organization representing a case, which entails a few embedded units of analysis. Case studies are about the base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) initiatives, during which all organizations are interested in management innovations which support them in coming up with and implementing between two and four new management practices.
Findings - The findings suggest four types of management innovations: efficiency-driven, externally recommended, problem-oriented, and opportunity-oriented management innovation.
Research limitations/implications - This paper explores and analyses management innovations, rather than testing them. As with most qualitative research, the transferability of the findings is limited.
Practical implications - Managers should vigorously pursue management innovations, not only in BoP markets, but also in all markets. Practitioners must, however, ensure that they are not fully absorbed by a single type of management innovation, and recognize the importance of pursing multiple ones.
Social implications - For academics, the authors revitalize the concept of engaged scholarship.
Originality/value - Surprisingly, previous research looks either into generic or specific management innovations. The typology is original, since the typology offers a more fine-grained view on management innovations.

Many barriers must be overcome when entering the base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) market. Firms facing these barriers need to innovate new business models and reinvent existing ones to suit the BoP context. While previous literature has focused on the innovations of particular components of business models in BoP markets, we investigate the reconfigurations in the business model components that underpin the successful business model innovations. This study is based on multiple case studies in the water sector that we carried out in several different countries. Our findings suggest five business model innovations: (a) design, (b) renewal, (c) expansion, (d) diversification and (e) replication. Each business model innovation is a specific response to the barriers met in the BoP market and requires consistent configuration between its various components (i.e. value proposition, value creation and profit equation). These findings add, in two important aspects, to the academic realm of the business model domain: by contributing to the debate of business models in BoP markets and by advancing the configurational view of business models.

What challenges do researchers face when leading transdisciplinary integration? We address this question by analyzing transdisciplinary integration within four thematic synthesis processes of the Swiss National Research Programme (NRP 61) on Sustainable Water Management. We adapt an existing analytical framework to compare transdisciplinary integration across the four synthesis processes regarding different types of generated knowledge (systems, target and transformation knowledge), different types of involved actors (core team, steering committee, advisory board, scientific experts and practice experts) and different levels of actor involvement (information, consultation and collaboration) at different stages of the processes. Based on a structured ex-post self-evaluation of the four synthesis processes, we present core challenges of transdisciplinary integration as perceived by core team members of the four synthesis processes and formulate empirically derived recommendations for designing and implementing future processes. We suggest that future synthesis processes should be conceptualized and initiated concurrently with all other individual research projects, involving a phasing-in stage where leaders conceptualize transdisciplinary integration, an intermediate stage of intense knowledge integration involving all relevant actor groups in a functional and dynamic way, and a final phasing out stage, where synthesis results are consolidated within the research program, validated by different actor groups and diffused to the target audiences. We argue that transdisciplinary integration requires professional competences, management skills and enough time. Finally, we suggest fostering communities of practice (CoP) to link committed leaders and enable mutual learning processes beyond the boundaries of individual synthesis projects or research programs.

Pay-per-use services are an interesting phenomenon, both empirically and theoretically. Despite the alleged benefits, companies still struggle to succeed with pay-per-use services. Theoretically, it is common sense that existing service capabilities cannot easily be converted into organizational capabilities for pay-per-use services. Based on multiple case studies, the present article narrows down the existing empirical and theoretical gaps through an inductive research approach. Our findings make the following contributions to the field of services in product-oriented companies and to the servitization literature. We describe the organizational capabilities necessary for pay-per-use services (e.g., financing such services, aligning costs with equipment usage, and collaborating with customers). We reveal that companies should convert these capabilities into three core competencies (strategizing pay-per-use services, utilizing technologies for pay-per-use services, and de-risking pay-per-use services), in order to achieve competitive advantages.

Service growth in product firms is one of the most active service research domains and is open to a variety of conceptualizations. This article provides a critical inquiry into the past, present, and future of the research domain. The evolution of the research on service growth is discussed in two phases: (1) setting the boundaries of the research domain, and (2) emergence of the conceptual foundation. We find that while research in this area has a well-established tradition in terms of output, theoretically it is still largely in a ‘nascent’ phase. Next, we highlight the contributions of the papers in this special section, emphasizing their challenges to prevailing assumptions in the research domain. We conclude by identifying, from the contributions to this special section, suggested themes for further research on service growth: the assessment of empirical evidence of the impact of service growth on firm performance, the role of merger & acquisitions in the service growth strategy, the exploration of single/multiple positions along the transition line, the process of adding or removing services, and expanding the context of service growth beyond product manufacturing firms.

The topic of servitization has generated a considerable body of research and many conferences, as well as industry engagement. Yet, despite the extensive literature associated with this now-mature discipline, there is no broad-based consensus on the core concepts and definitions deployed by servitization scholars, and both terminology and usage often seem ambiguous. This paper examines challenges related to service growth strategies, as well as strategies involving deservitization or a retreat from service offerings. Showing that these strategies have been pursued for more than fifty years, clarification is sought here by framing the corresponding processes and proposing definitions for four core terms: servitization, service infusion, deservitization and service dilution. It becomes clear that in focusing on the organizational change entailed by these processes, future research must elucidate “softer” issues such as leadership and business logic.

By representing the servitization of three leading corporations via a strategy map, this multiple-case study discusses how the strategic logic of servitization can be explained by linking the key practices adopted by manufacturers to support critical processes while shifting their focus to project-based customer solutions. The results draw on data collected from solution providers operating in the metal and machinery industries headquartered in Finland. By examining the strategic actions, tools, and processes behind the implementation of servitization, this study extends recent debates on the service-based business models of manufacturing companies. For servitization theory, this study develops a strategy map for a solution provider. For manufacturing firms, this study provides a framework and a tool for benchmarking, developing and implementing a strategy while mitigating the processes of long-term value creation and appropriation.

The toilets used most in informal urban settlements have detrimental consequences for the environment and human health due to the lack of proper collection and treatment of toilet waste. Concepts for safe, sustainable and affordable sanitation systems exist, but their feasibility and acceptance have to be investigated at an early stage of development, which is difficult due to the high costs of building working models. In this paper, we present an approach to estimate acceptance in a valid and representative form with only one working model, and apply it to test an innovative zero-emission toilet with recycling of wash water. Four basic principles were specified for investigation and nine hypotheses formulated to test the feasibility and acceptance of these principles: source separation of urine and feces with subsequent collection for resource recovery; provision of wash water in a separate cycle with on-site recovery through a membrane bioreactor; a convenient and attractive overall design; and a financially sustainable business plan. In Kampala (Uganda), in 2013, data was collected from 22 regular users, 308 one-time users and a representative sample of 1538 participants. Qualitative data was collected from the users, who evaluated their likes, perceived benefits, social norms and expected ease of use based on verbal and visual information. Most of the hypotheses were confirmed, indicating the feasibility and acceptance of the basic principles. Source separation and on-site water recovery were found to be feasible and accepted, provided users can be convinced that the emptying service and water recovery process work reliably. In the survey, the toilet was evaluated favorably and 51% of the participants agreed to be placed on a bogus waiting list. However, some design challenges were revealed, such as the size of the toilet, hiding feces from view and improving the separation of urine and water

Service innovation is often viewed as a process of accessing the necessary resources, (re)combining them, and converting them into new services. The current knowledge on success factors for service innovation, such as formalized new service development (NSD) processes, predominantly comes from studying large firms with a relatively stable resource base. However, this neglect situations in which organizations face severe resource constraints. This paper argues that under such constraints, a formalized new service development process could be counter-productive and a bricolage perspective might better explain service innovation in resource constrained environments. In this conceptual paper, we propose that four critical bricolage capabilities (addressing resource scarcity actively, making do with what is available, improvising when recombining resources, and networking with external partners) influence service innovation outcomes. Empirical illustrations from five organizations substantiate our conceptual development. Our discussion leads to a framework and four testable propositions that can guide further service research.

Towards a theory of regional diversification: combining insights from Evolutionary Economic Geography and Transition Studies. Regional Studies. This paper develops a theoretical framework of regional diversification by combining insights from Evolutionary Economic Geography and Transition Studies. It argues that a theory of regional diversification should not only build on the current understanding of related diversification but also account for processes of unrelated diversification by looking at the role of agency in processes of institutional entrepreneurship, and at enabling and constraining factors at various spatial scales. This paper proposes a typology of four regional diversification trajectories by cross-tabulating related versus unrelated diversification with niche creation versus regime adoption, and it develops a number of propositions.

ADDRESSING real-world problems is one of the purposes of integrative and collaborative research. Transdisciplinary research (TR) is a family of concepts and approaches that aims at better fitting academic knowledge production to societal needs for solving, mitigating, or preventing problems such as violence, disease, and environmental pollution. Transdisciplinary research strives to grasp the relevant complexity of a problem, taking into account the diversity of both everyday and academic perceptions of problems, linking abstract and case-specific knowledge, and developing descriptive, normative, and transformative knowledge for the common interest. Integration is a core feature and major challenge of TR. Practitioners of TR also call for a recursive approach to addressing problems, focusing on problem identification and structuring, investigation, and bringing results to fruition as the three phases of the TR process.
In this chapter we first describe the context in which TR and kindred approaches emerged in the second half of the twentieth century and the steps in developing TR as a form of research (Section 23,1). We then present a definition of TR that focuses on its role in addressing wicked real-world problems (Section 23.2). Next we explain challenges that come along with research on real-world problems (Section 23.3) and with providing knowledge for addressing such problems (Section 23.4). Tools for tackling challenges of the TR process appear after that (Section 23.5), illustrated by the example of the Sustainability Foresight project. The conclusion highlights open questions and ongoing debates requiring clarification for the next steps forward in TR (Section 23.6).

Sustainability transitions of sectors like energy, transport or water have become explicit goals of national policy programs in several parts of the world. The governance of associated innovation and transformation processes requires an integrated assessment on how new and seemingly superior technologies will interact with manifold societal, economic, industrial and political contexts. Failing to do so is likely to quickly undermine political support for these ambitious and long term projects. Part of the program of technology assessment is to anticipate the impacts of new technologies on society and the environment. However, in order to address the challenge of sustainability transitions, institutional dynamics have not been considered explicitly enough in existing approaches. We elaborate a methodological proposal on how to analyze the interaction between technological and institutional developments in specific technology fields. We identify potential future variations of core institutional structures of a socio-technical regime, construct matching regime constellations, and elaborate on interactions with technological design alternatives. The framework will be applied to recent developments in the field of electric mobility in the context of the German Energiewende. The results provide some fresh perspectives for academics and policy makers on how to better consider interactive dynamics in socio-technical systems.

The concept of innovation systems has been a guiding paradigm of innovation research and strongly influenced research and innovation policy since the early 1990s. In spite of this success, criticisms have been raised in recent years about whether it is still a suitable framework for addressing the innovation-related challenges of the future. In the present paper we claim that systemic explanations of innovation success have still a very important role to play. In order to address the rising criticism, however, we have to reconsider the conceptual core of the family of innovation systems (IS) approaches and sketch out a path for renewal. The paper retraces the conceptual roots of IS approaches, assesses their uptake in different policy circles around the world, discusses the conceptual core and explanatory ambition, and finally formulates a future-oriented research agenda for a more integrative innovation systems framework.

Direct potable water reuse (DPR), the injection of highly purified wastewater into drinking water systems, is among the newest, and most controversial, methods for augmenting water supplies. DPR is garnering increasing interest, but does not come without risks. This paper examines the notion that emerging regulation of DPR may lack sufficient attention to a particular class of risks: catastrophic risks with low probabilities of occurrence, but high consequences. It may be instructive for proponents of DPR that such consequences have materialized in other industries, with damage to human welfare and to the industries themselves. We develop brief histories of risk regulation from the aviation, offshore oil, and nuclear industries, drawing out relevant lessons for the emerging DPR field.We argue that proponents of DPR could benefit from proactively developing a safety culture in DPR utilities and establishing an effective industry-wide auditing organization that investigates unanticipated system failures. Developing independent oversight for DPR operation could ensure that stringent quality and management requirements are set and enforced, and that any system failures or "near misses" are investigated and adequately responded to.

The voluminous literature on industrial catching-up in Southeast Asian countries has regularly argued that successful catching-up largely depended on a committed state, which orchestrated industry development with a relatively uniform set of policies, including R&D support, subsidies, trade restrictions, and local content requirements. In contrast, recent contributions from the technology lifecycle literature have argued that policies should be tailored to differing technological characteristics in industries for mass-produced standardized goods, complex engineered products, and—as we argue—complex product systems (CoPS). In this paper, we extend this argument by introducing a set of separate policy mixes for each industry type, which appears most capable of providing the key resources required for catching-up: knowledge, market access, financial investment and technology legitimacy. This framework is used to analyze catching-up patterns in China's wind, solar PV, and biomass power plant industries, drawing mainly on policy documents and 106 interviews with key industry actors
We find that traditional top-down catching-up policies played a decisive role in the development of China's wind industry, but were of limited importance in the early solar PV industry, and resulted only in a limited period of rapid growth in the biomass power plant industry. The relative progress achieved in these three industries is not related to top-down policy guidance alone, but also to private sector initiative, international interdependencies, and flexibility in adapting policy mixes to each industry's technological characteristics. These results suggest that policy makers in newly industrializing countries (NICs) should avoid drafting generic sector plans, but should tailor plans to individual industries, and respond to changing policy support needs as technological capacities and global competitiveness develop.

The top priorities for urban water sustainability include the provision of safe drinking water, wastewater handling for public health, and protection against flooding. However, rapidly aging infrastructure, population growth, and increasing urbanization call into question current urban water management strategies, especially in the fast-growing urban areas in Asia and Africa. We review innovative approaches in urban water management with the potential to provide locally adapted, resource-efficient alternative solutions. Promising examples include new concepts for stormwater drainage, increased water productivity, distributed or on-site treatment of wastewater, source separation of human waste, and institutional and organizational reforms. We conclude that there is an urgent need for major transdisciplinary efforts in research, policy, and practice to develop alternatives with implications for cities and aquatic ecosystems alike.

In many regions of the world, urban water systems will need to transition into fundamentally different forms to address current stressors and meet impending challenges—faster innovation will need to be part of these transitions. To assess the innovation deficit in urban water organizations and to identify means for supporting innovation, we surveyed wastewater utility managers in California. Our results reveal insights about the attitudes towards innovation among decision makers, and how perceptions at the level of individual managers might create disincentives for experimentation. Although managers reported feeling relatively unhindered organizationally, they also spend less time on innovation than they feel they should. The most frequently reported barriers to innovation included cost and financing; risk and risk aversion; and regulatory compliance. Considering these results in the context of prior research on innovation systems, we conclude that collective action may be required to address underinvestment in innovation.

Where and how new industrial paths emerge are much debated questions in economic geography, especially in light of the recent evolutionary turn. This article contributes to the ongoing debate on path creation with a new analytical framework that specifies the formation of generic resources in embryonic industries. It suggests that path creation processes are not only conditioned by preexisting regional capabilities and technological relatedness but also by the way firm and nonfirm actors mobilize and anchor key resources for industry formation. Our framework elaborates on the early industry development phase, extending the focus on regional knowledge spillovers in evolutionary economic geography (EEG) literature with recent insights on industry formation dynamics from innovation studies. It understands early path creation as conditioned by four systemic resource formation processes—knowledge creation, investment mobilization, market formation, and technology legitimation—that can be mobilized both from inside or anchored from outside the region. The use and value of the analytical framework is illustrated by a case study on on-site water recycling technology (OST), based on interviews with 40 experts in three Chinese city regions. The findings suggest that, despite possessing the least favorable initial conditions, a sizable OST industry developed only in Beijing. This is explained based on the specific anchoring process of the four key resources in the early development stage of the industry. Our results imply that EEG would profit from incorporating a broader set of variables than knowledge-based relatedness in explanations of regional industrial path creation.

Literature on socio-technical transitions has primarily emphasized the co-determination of institutions and technologies. In this paper, we want to focus on how actors play a mediating role between these two pillars of a socio-technical system. By introducing the theoretical concept of institutional work, we contribute to the conceptualization and empirical assessment of agency processes in socio-technical systems. We illustrate this approach by analyzing recent developments in the Australian urban water sector, where seawater desalination technology has experienced an unexpected, but rapid diffusion to all major cities, often interpreted as a reaction to a major multi-year drought. However, the drought broke and left all but one plant unused. This has led many commentators wonder how such a massive investment – which is likely to limit alternative development trajectories in the sector for the coming decades – could have happened so quickly and why other, potentially more sustainable technologies, have not been able to use the momentum of the crisis to break through. A comparative analysis between seawater desalination and its main rival wastewater recycling in regard to processes of institutional work provides valuable insight into how technology, actors and institutions mutually shaped each other.

Technological innovation that is incongruous with established social rules and practices is often confronted with strong skepticism and a lack of societal legitimacy. Yet, how the early actors in a new technological field create legitimacy for new products is not well researched. This paper addresses this gap by proposing an analytical framework for the early technology legitimation phase that combines recent insights from innovation studies and institutional sociology. Both literatures agree that technology legitimation depends on a complex alignment process in which the technology and its institutional context mutually shape each other. Innovation system studies recently proposed to explore these processes in more detail. So far, this literature has mainly treated legitimacy as an outcome of overall system maturation and has not ventured into assessing legitimation as an active process. The framework we put forward in this paper conceptualizes technology legitimation as being enacted by different actors in a technological innovation system through specific forms of institutional work. This framework is illustrated with a case study on potable water reuse, in this case the injection of treated wastewater into drinking water reservoirs — a technology most consumers confront with revulsion. California is among very few regions worldwide where this technology is becoming common practice. Interviews with 20 key stakeholders and content analysis of 124 newspaper articles reveal how technology proponents worked on legitimizing this controversial technology by engaging in system building and institutional work at various levels. We outline how the legitimation process interrelates with other core development processes of a technological innovation system and discuss how our framework informs recent work in innovation and transition studies.

Legitimacy is central for both novel and established technologies to mobilize the resources necessary forgrowth and survival. A loss of legitimacy, in turn, can have detrimental effects for an industry. In thispaper, we study the rise and fall of technology legitimacy of agricultural biogas in Germany over a periodof more than 20 years (1990–2012). The field witnessed impressive growth and professionalization formany years and has become one of the key technologies in Germany’s energy transition. In recent years,however, it has been confronted with major criticism, which finally resulted in a substantial cut-backof public and political support. The aim of our study is twofold. In empirical terms, we will explainthe technology’s loss of legitimacy despite its compliance with original policy objectives: growth andmaturation. In theoretical terms, we work toward a more general framework to understand technologylegitimacy and to explain the institutional dynamics of technological innovation systems.

Decentralised wastewater treatment is increasingly gaining interest as a means of responding to sustainability challenges. Cost comparisons are a crucial element of any sustainability assessment. While the cost characteristics of centralised waste water management systems (WMS) have been studied extensively, the economics of decentralised WMS are less understood. A key motivation for studying the costs of decentralised WMS is to compare the cost of centralised and decentralised WMS in order to decide on cost-efficient sanitation solutions. This paper outlines a model designed to assess those costs which depend on the spatial density of decentralised wastewater treatment plants in a region. Density-related costs are mostly linked to operation and maintenance activities which depend on transportation, like sludge removal or the visits of professionals to the plants for control, servicing or repairs. We first specify a modelled cost-density relationship for a region in a geometric two-dimensional space by means of heuristic routing algorithms that consider time and load-capacity restrictions. The generic model is then applied to a Swiss case study for which we specify a broad range of modelling parameters. As a result, we identify a ‘hockey-stick’-shaped cost curve that is characterised by strong cost reductions at high density values which level out at around 1 to 1.5 plants per km². Variations in the cost curves are mostly due to differences in management approaches (scheduled or unscheduled emptying). In addition to the well-known diseconomies of scale in the case of centralised sanitation, we find a similar generic cost behaviour for decentralised sanitation due to economies of density. Low densities in sparsely populated regions thus result in higher costs for both centralised and decentralised system. Policy implications are that efforts to introduce decentralised options in a region should consider the low-density/high-cost problem when comparing centralised and decentralised options.

The strong reliance of most utility services on centralised network infrastructures is becoming increasingly challenged by new technological advances in decentralised alternatives. However, not enough effort has been made to develop planning tools designed to address the implications of these new opportunities and to determine the optimal degree of centralisation of these infrastructures. We introduce a planning tool for sustainable network infrastructure planning (SNIP), a two-step techno-economic heuristic modelling approach based on shortest path-finding and hierarchical-agglomerative clustering algorithms to determine the optimal degree of centralisation in the field of wastewater management. This SNIP model optimises the distribution of wastewater treatment plants and the sewer network outlay relative to several cost and sewer-design parameters. Moreover, it allows us to construct alternative optimal wastewater system designs taking into account topography, economies of scale as well as the full size range of wastewater treatment plants. We quantify and confirm that the optimal degree of centralisation decreases with increasing terrain complexity and settlement dispersion while showing that the effect of the latter exceeds that of topography. Case study results for a Swiss community indicate that the calculated optimal degree of centralisation is substantially lower than the current level.

A firm's competitive advantage originates increasingly from absorbing external knowledge. Absorbing external knowledge and the underlying learning processes are referred to as a company's absorptive capacity. In this article, we outline research trends on absorptive capacity. We apply a bibliometric analysis to describe the concept's historical development, define the intellectual core of the absorptive capacity concept, and discuss recent conceptualizations. Then, we identify two prominent streams in the absorptive capacity literature and provide a new approach on how to integrate them. Finally, we provide an outlook on possible themes in future research on absorptive capacity.

Water resource managers often tout the potential of potable water reuse to provide a reliable, local source of drinking water in water-scarce regions. Despite data documenting the ability of advanced treatment technologies to treat municipal wastewater effluent to meet existing drinking water quality standards, many utilities face skepticism from the public about potable water reuse. Prior research on this topic has mainly focused on marketing strategies for garnering public acceptance of the process. This study takes a broader perspective on the adoption of potable water reuse based on concepts of societal legitimacy, which is the generalized perception or assumption that a technology is desirable or appropriate within its social context. To assess why some potable reuse projects were successfully implemented while others faced fierce public opposition, we performed a series of 20 expert interviews and reviewed in-depth case studies from potable reuse projects in California. Results show that proponents of a legitimated potable water reuse project in Orange County, California engaged in a portfolio of strategies that addressed three main dimensions of legitimacy. In contrast, other proposed projects that faced extensive public opposition relied on a smaller set of legitimation strategies that focused near-exclusively on the development of robust water treatment technology. Widespread legitimation of potable water reuse projects, including direct potable water reuse, may require the establishment of a portfolio of standards, procedures, and possibly new institutions.

Both academics and practitioners emphasize the importance for product firms of implementing service-led growth strategies. The service transition concept is well established, namely a unidirectional repositioning along a product-service continuum—from basic, product-oriented services towards more customized, process-oriented ones—ultimately leading to the provision of solutions. We challenge this service transition assumption and develop alternative ones regarding how product firms should pursue service-led growth. Using 'problematization methodology', and drawing on findings from thirteen system suppliers, we identify three service-led growth trajectories: (1) becoming an availability provider, which is the focus of most transition literature; (2) becoming a performance provider, which resembles project-based sales and implies an even greater differentiation of what customers are offered; and, (3) becoming an 'industrializer', which is about standardizing previously customized solutions to promote repeatability and scalability. Based on our critical inquiry, we develop two alternative assumptions: (a) firms need to constantly balance business expansion and standardization activities; and (b) manage the co-existence of different system supplier roles. Finally, we consider the implications for implementing service-led growth strategies of the alternative assumptions.

The sanitation concept ‘Blue Diversion’ (www.bluediversiontoilet.com) was developed as a possible answer to the sanitation crisis in urban slums. It is based on two main elements: (1) diversion of urine, feces, and water at the source as the basis for efficient resource recovery, and (2) linking different scales (family toilets and semi-centralized resource recovery). Our objective was to develop an attractive ‘grid-free’ (i.e. functioning without piped water, sewer, and electrical grid) dry urine-diverting toilet, which provides water (through recycling on-site) for flushing, personal hygiene (anal cleansing and menstrual hygiene), and hand washing. This service, including the entire sanitation value chain, should eventually be made available as a profitable business with total user fees of 5 ¢/p/d. The results presented in this paper are (1) a toilet design model, (2) the development of a new type of membrane bioreactor for treating flush and wash water, (3) main results of a geographic information system-based stochastic service model to link the family-scale toilet to a community-scale Resource Recovery Plant, and (4) a business model that yields maximum profit for the local community. We conclude that the approach is feasible, but challenging from a technical as well as an organizational point of view.

This paper analyzes the ability of water utilities to contribute to sustainability transition processes. More specifically, we compare the capacity of utilities, embedded in purely public, mixed and largely private governance modes, to innovate. We employ dynamic capabilities as core indicators for innovativeness and therefore as major enabling factors for sustainable sector transitions. We assess the relationship between governance modes and innovation by conducting an in-depth comparative analysis of three water utilities, each within a differing governance mode along the public-to-private continuum: Zurich, Berlin and Leeds. While we find that the private and mixed governance modes have an increased degree of innovativeness, they perform lower in terms of static sustainability criteria than the public mode. We therefore conclude that the impact of privatization on sustainability transitions in the water sector involves multi-dimensional trade-offs between static and dynamic sustainability criteria.

Transition research has recently been criticized to lack of geographically sensitive concepts to address sustainability transitions and environmental innovation processes. This has generated a number of suggestions how space, place and scale can be better incorporated into transitions studies. Moreover, it has led to a quickly growing number of empirical studies that explicitly deal with geographical aspects of transition processes. This special issue takes stock of these recent developments by assembling a set of eight exemplary papers that illustrate the added value of an explicitly geographical perspective on sustainability transitions. The contributions include a conceptual paper, a literature review and six empirical papers that offer representative examples of recent work. Taken together, these contributions testify to the vitality of the emerging research on the geography of sustainability transitions. This introduction to the special issue provides an overview of the special issue and offers suggestions for future research.

In recent years, socio-technical transitions literature has gained importance in addressing long-term, transformative change in various industries. In order to account for the inertia and path-dependency experienced in these sectors, the concept of the socio-technical regime has been formulated. Socio-technical regimes denote the paradigmatic core of a sector, which results from the co-evolution of institutions and technologies over time. Despite its widespread acceptance, the regime concept has repeatedly been criticized for lacking a clear operationalization. As a consequence, empirical applications tend to depict regimes as too 'monolithic' and 'homogenous', not adequately considering persistent institutional tensions and contradictions. These are however crucial for assessing transition dynamics. In this paper, we revisit two concepts from institutional theory that enable an explicit identification of socio-technical regimes and more generally a specification of the 'semi-coherence' of socio-technical systems. First, we will show that 'levels of structuration' can be conceptualized as degrees of institutionalization, thereby treating institutionalization as a variable with different effects on actors, the stability of the system and thus the potential for change. Secondly, we draw on the institutional logics approach to characterize the content of various structural elements present in a system and to trace conflicts and contradictions between them. We illustrate this approach with an empirical in-depth analysis of the transformation of the Australian urban water sector since the 1970ies.

Studies on technological innovation systems (TISs) often set spatial boundaries at the national level and treat supranational levels as a geographically undifferentiated and freely accessible global technological opportunity set. This article criticizes this conceptualization and proposes instead to analyze relevant actors, networks and processes in TIS from a relational perspective on space. It develops an analytical framework which allows investigating innovation processes (or 'functions') of a TIS at and across different spatial scales. Based on social network analysis of a co-publication dataset from membrane bioreactor technology, we illustrate how the spatial characteristics of collaborations in knowledge creation vary greatly over relatively short periods of time. This finding suggests that TIS studies should be more reflexive on system boundary setting both regarding the identification and analysis of core processes as well as in the formulation of policy advice.

Corporate venturing has begun to garner more and more headlines in recent years, as an increasing number of companies commit to venture investing for the long term. Below, Boris Battistini, Fredrik Hacklin, and Pius Baschera discuss four steps that are consistently applied to make corporate venturing work.

Various technologies have been deployed in household devices or micro-water treatment plants for mitigating fluoride and arsenic, and thereby provide safe and affordable drinking water in low-income countries. While the technologies have improved considerably, organizations still face challenges in making them financially sustainable. Financial sustainability questions the business models behind these water technologies. This article makes three contributions to business models in the context of fluoride and arsenic mitigation. Firstly, we describe four business models: A) low-value devices given away to people living in extreme poverty, B) high-value devices sold to low-income customers, C) communities as beneficiaries of micro-water treatment plants and D) entrepreneurs as franchisees for selling water services and highlight the emergence of hybrid business models. Secondly, we show current business model innovations such as cost transparency & cost reductions, secured & extended water payments, business diversification and distribution channels. Thirdly, we describe skills and competencies as part of capacity building for creating even more business model innovations. Together, these three contributions will create more awareness of the role of business models in scaling-up water treatment technologies.

The transition from products to services is popular research theme with a continuously increasing number of articles. We analyze these articles and identify the intellectual core. The intellectual core consists of seven research directions: Solution delivery, Solution marketing, Services in manufacturing companies, Service performance in manufacturing companies, product-service-systems, and industrial service development. We articulate critical empirical and theoretical considerations. Future research should further explore the synergies among the research directions. We articulate concrete research questions to expand and to deepen the empirical and theoretical research.

A medida que las industrias convergen, y empresas que, en apariencia, no guardaban relación entre sí se convierten de repente en rivales, los directivos deben comprender los nuevos desafíos y las implicaciones a largo plazo.

Determining how to optimally market ceramic filters and other household water treatment and safe storage products (HWTS) is crucial to the promotion of safe water use. Trials were conducted to test four different distribution strategies to find out which works best in different local contexts.

Ein junger afrikanischer Unternehmer will in seiner Heimat ein Ver­pa­ckungs­un­ter­neh­men aufbauen. Soll er sein Geschäft auf mehrere kleine Länder ausdehnen oder sich lieber auf den größten Markt in Nigeria konzentrieren?

Transdisciplinary research plays an increasing role in topics of societal relevance and impact. The td-net of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences awards innovative transdisciplinary research every other year. The last td-award was given in 2013. This special focus of GAIA features the six prize-winning projects, presenting short summaries of their work. Explaining its selection in the following introduction, the Jury of the td-net honours the awardees, and puts their work into a global perspective.

Literature on academic spin-offs gives evidence of different modes of interaction between spin-offs and their parent and their relative role in different modes of knowledge production. In this article, we examine the development of interactions between academic spin-offs and their parent organizations over a mid- to long-term period (4–15 years), drawing on a series of 25 case studies of spin-off/parent pairs from France and Switzerland. We show that the relational trajectories can be captured by four major dynamic patterns. These patterns range from an early cut-off of interactions in line with a linear model of innovation to sustained interactions supporting joint production of knowledge. Some patterns even include a change in the mode of knowledge production over time. In addition, we identify a number of determinants, internal or external to the pair, affecting the dynamic pattern. We conclude that management of spin-off processes and support policies for academic spin-offs should embrace this dynamic diversity.

Interaction between institutional change and technological change poses important constraints on transitions of urban water systems to a state that can meet future needs. Research on urban water and other technology-dependent systems provides insights that are valuable to technology researchers interested in assuring that their efforts will have an impact. In the context of research on institutional change, innovation is the development, application, diffusion, and utilization of new knowledge and technology. This definition is intentionally inclusive: technological innovation will play a key role in reinvention of urban water systems, but is only part of what is necessary. Innovation usually depends on context, such that major changes to infrastructure include not only the technological inventions that drive greater efficiencies and physical transformations of water treatment and delivery systems, but also the political, cultural, social, and economic factors that hinder and enable such changes. On the basis of past and present changes in urban water systems, institutional innovation will be of similar importance to technological innovation in urban water reinvention. To solve current urban water infrastructure challenges, technology-focused researchers need to recognize the intertwined nature of technologies and institutions and the social systems that control change.

Urban water scarcity has been an issue for a long time in China while water pollution has attracted more and more attention over the last two decades. Recently, on-site wastewater treatment (OST) has been proposed as a meaningful alternative to deal with both water pollution and water scarcity in cities in a more sustainable way. However, the diffusion of such an OST system is still slow and often hindered by mismatched regulation, city planning and policy interventions. This paper is intended to explore potential solutions from institutional and governance perspectives. Based on expert interviews and in-depth analysis of an OST system in Kunming, an improved trajectory for diffusing OST in urban China is developed, which includes reformed decision-making and operational procedures, role transition of relevant stakeholders, and improved financing mechanisms. The results might give some suggestions for the transition of urban water management in other newly industrializing countries.

Institutions play a crucial role for the development and diffusion of novel technologies. Many studies have analyzed the role of formal institutions such as support policies or specific R&D programs, while informal institutions have received less attention. With this paper, we contribute to the institutional analysis of emerging technological fields as we examine how the effects of formal institutions depend on informal institutional structures. We present findings from a comparative study of biogas technology in selected Austrian regions. Our findings suggest that the professional culture in which farmers are embedded modulates the effects of feed-in tariffs and investment subsidies to a considerable extent. This explains regional differences in the diffusion as well as variations in the design and operation of biogas plants. We argue that studies on emerging technologies benefit from a systematic analysis of the interplay of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive institutions. We also argue that socichnical variation is an important indicator to look at in addition to diffusion rates.

This paper proposes a capability-based framework to explain performance deficiencies in utility firms as a result of policy and regulatory changes. The framework complements conventional explanations such as transaction cost and agency approaches, which suggest that appropriate incentives and regulations increase the performance of public utilities after relatively short adaptation processes. In contrast, we argue that capability gaps – understood as an inadequate availability of competences, skills and experiences – tend to have long-lasting effects on firm performance. A crucial implication of the capability perspective is that regulatory interventions that create capability gaps at the firm level may affect utility performance – and the ability of infrastructure sectors to provide adequate services – more severely than expected by traditional approaches.

Manufacturers of capital goods may not be able to master internally all the relevant service activities for moving from products to solutions. As well, it is rarely economically viable for them to do so. Consequently, they increasingly resort to complex service networks that embrace traditional product-orientated and vertically-integrated supplier-customer relationships. Through multiple case studies this paper identifies four different types of service networks involved in the provision of solutions, and the capabilities necessary for forming and utilizing such networks. The types are: a). vertical after-sales service network, b). horizontal outsourcing service network, c). vertical life-cycle service network, and d). horizontal integration service network. Analyzed through the perspective of the "focal firm", these network types promote understanding of the movement towards providing integrated solutions for products and services. The service components included in the solution drive the formation of the network along the vertical and horizontal dimensions. The formation and utilization of each service networks type require a specific set of dynamic capabilities (to initiate a specific network formation), and operational capabilities (that allow the network firms to develop, integrate and deliver the service components of the solution), discussed in the paper.

Purpose – The article aims to combine research priorities in the service domain with the emerging topic of service management for the base of the pyramid (BoP). This combination allows us to construct an agenda for service research at the BoP.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses bibliographic methods for structuring the BoP contributions, and a literature review for the current research priorities in the service domain.
Findings – First, the paper highlights the main topics in the emerging BoP debate. Second, the paper constructs a research agenda for service management at the BoP. This agenda can guide service researchers in the selection of feasible empirical fields, support them in finding appropriate research designs, and finally, help them to develop suitable theoretical perspectives.
Research limitations/implications – Limitations arise from the literature review and bibliographic methods themselves.
Practical implications – Service research on the BoP provides new ideas for practitioners interested in learning about BoP markets, strategies, and entrepreneurial initiatives.
Social implications – Understanding the need to explore BoP activities is fundamental to working with a huge segment of society, not only as passive consumers, but also as genuine entrepreneurs capable of creating and managing “inclusive” innovations.
Originality/value – The research agenda for future service management offers a relevant source of ideas and guidance for interested researchers to rethink their empirical fields, research approaches, and theoretical perspectives.

Purpose - Information and communication technology (ICT) is a key enabler for new product- and process-oriented services. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how ICT can enable service differentiation and, in doing so, act as a catalyst for a service business orientation.
Design/methodology/approach - The paper is based on a qualitative, multi-case research design with eight multinational goods manufacturers.
Findings - The paper identifies two distinct types of service-oriented differentiation: services in support of the product (SSP) and services in support of the client's actions (SSC). The study finds that SSC have the largest positive impact on firms' service business orientation.
Research limitations/implications - Western firms in a limited sample of industries are studied. Furthermore, the service business orientation construct does not include any measurements of service profitability or impact on overall competitive advantage. Practical implications: To various extents, successful firms are likely to pursue both SSP and SSC differentiation traits through ICT. The two options are interdependent and the framework presented helps managers to understand both key specificities and their interrelatedness.
Originality/value - The study contributes to theory on service strategies by specifically focusing on the enabling role of ICT for new services and its effects on each of the three dimensions of the service business orientation construct.

Waste-based business models for resource recovery could be the solution to the sanitation challenges of low and middle income countries. This is the research aim of the Tr iple R Project (Resource, Recovery and Reuse), which is analysing the factors of business success in this industry.

At an IMD Discovery Event in April 2013, 75 participants reflected on the challenges of building a service-centric organization, discovered some of the best practices of leading companies and networked with their peers. Executives left better equipped to navigate the transition from the increasingly commoditized product landscape to one offering value-added services.

Environmental innovation and sustainability transitions in regional studies, Regional Studies. Sustainable development and environmental innovations have received increasing attention in regional studies and the related literature. In how far sustainability concerns might also lead to fundamental transformations in technologies, industries and lifestyles (so-called sustainability transitions) has, however, found much less resonance. Sustainability transitions have been in the focus of scholars from the field of innovation studies. However, until recently, these approaches mostly disregarded spatial aspects. This paper therefore maps out a field of future research – the geography of sustainability transitions – that might be beneficially laboured by both traditions. The paper introduces the core concepts, but also the limitations of the transitions literature. After reviewing salient lines of sustainability-related research in regional studies, the paper specifies promising research areas at the interface between both fields. Empirical illustrations will be provided from recent work in sustainability transitions research venturing into this interface.

Sustainability oriented innovation and technology studies have received increasing attention over the past 10–15 years. In particular, a new field dealing with "sustainability transitions" has gained ground and reached an output of 60–100 academic papers per year. In this article, we aim to identify the intellectual contours of this emerging field by conducting a review of basic conceptual frameworks, together with bibliographical analysis of 540 journal articles in the field. It is against this background that we position the six papers assembled in a special section in Research Policy. These papers pave the way for new conceptual developments and serve as stepping-stones in the maturation of sustainability transition studies, by linking with the scholarly literatures of management studies, sociology, policy studies, economic geography, and modeling.

Sustainable transitions in the energy sector have gained only insufficient attention in economic geography so far. Conversely, transition scholars do not pay sufficient attention to the spatial dimension of these dynamics. This paper introduces a conceptual framework for analysing the spatial characteristics of market formation processes in emerging technological innovation systems, thus proposing a shared field of research for economic geographers and transition scholars. Drawing on a social constructivist analysis of market formation processes, we propose to differentiate "market formation" into three sub-processes for which we additionally specify spatial characteristics: (1) the formation of market segments, (2) market transactions and (3) end-user profiles. We apply this conceptual and explanatory framework to explain the uneven geography of photovoltaic market formation in Germany, the current world market leader in this field. By analysing the role of local solar initiatives in shaping and supporting local market formation processes, we are able to provide a more encompassing explanation of the German PV success story than alternative accounts that merely focus on strong incentive structures and favourable geophysical conditions.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze how strategic renewal affects the reconfiguration of capabilities. In the context of organizational change in a large utility firm, we examine the evolution of the capability structure, and explain the emergence and persistence of capability gaps.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses an inductive multiple case study methodology to compare four processes of capability reconfiguration at Eskom, South Africa’s electricity supplier.
Findings – The results show that strategic renewal unfolds through different processes, which vary in their impact. Some processes have an immediate effect in closing capability gaps. The impact of others is with a significant time lag. Most critical, however, are processes that widen capability gaps. As a result, firms may face severe and persistent performance deficiencies.
Research limitations/implications – Prior research has only marginally addressed the relationship between strategic renewal and capability reconfiguration, and has largely neglected emerging capability gaps.
Practical implications – Strategic renewal may cause unintended crowding out effects of specific capabilities. Managers need to consider these potential implications of strategic renewal.
Social implications – Understanding the challenges of how to improve the performance of utility services is crucial for economic development, welfare and social inclusion.
Originality/value – This study importantly highlights that the emergence of capability gaps is a common phenomenon rather than an exception in strategic renewal processes. The findings contribute to the strategic renewal literature and to management research in infrastructure sectors.

Infrastructure services such as electricity, water supply, sanitation and transportation are crucially important in our economies. Despite this importance, utility firms have found little attention in management research. This is surprising because the lack of adequate organizational structures, skills and specialized managerial know-how is an emergent issue and main challenge for many utilities worldwide. We propose a capability-based framework to explain performance deficiencies in utilities. The framework elaborates why capability gaps emerge and persist, and how this, in turn, affects performance. The insights from this framework go beyond the conventional explanations of the transaction cost and agency approaches, which suggest that appropriate incentives and regulatory structures increase the performance of public utilities immediately or after a short adaptation process. In contrast, capability gaps – understood as an inadequate availability of competences, expertise and experience – tend to have long-lasting effects because capabilities take time to develop. Especially if capabilities are highly tacit, correcting for a gap and rebuilding capabilities take time due to the involved learning processes. Consequently, performance deficiencies affect utility firms more severely than expected by traditional approaches. Deriving from the proposed framework, we discuss possible strategies that utility firms can implement to respond to capability gaps.

A rapid implementation of potentially more sustainable sector structures in newly industrializing countries (NICs) is of key importance to reach global sustainability. The conceptual basis for assessing such "leapfrogging" potentials is however still rather weakly developed. The present paper elaborates an encompassing conceptual framework drawing on the technological innovation systems literature and adding an explicit geographical focus that embeds an NIC's innovation system in its international context. From this, we derive six ideal-type leapfrogging trajectories. The framework is applied to the case of a potential transition to onsite wastewater treatment in China. Empirical evidence is based on 30 expert interviews with representatives from companies, universities, authorities and associations in China and Europe. Our results suggest that leapfrogging in the Chinese wastewater sector might develop in either an integrated "international innovation system" trajectory, where Chinese and international actors closely interact, or in an "international competition" trajectory, where Chinese actors endogenously build up technological leadership in strong competition to international actors. We conclude by outlining policy implications and by discussing future research priorities for leapfrogging and transition studies.

In the past decade, the literature on transitions toward sustainable socio-technical systems has made a considerable contribution in understanding the complex and multi-dimensional shifts considered necessary to adapt societies and economies to sustainable modes of production and consumption. However, transition analyses have often neglected where transitions take place, and the spatial configurations and dynamics of the networks within which transitions evolve. A more explicit spatial perspective on sustainability transitions contributes to the extant transitions literature in three ways. Firstly it provides a contextualization on the limited territorial sensitivity of existing literature. Secondly, it explicitly acknowledges and investigates diversity in transition processes, which follows from a 'natural' variety in institutional conditions, networks, actor strategies and resources across space. Thirdly, it encompasses not only greater emphasis but also an opportunity to connect to a body of literature geared to understanding the international, trans-local nature of transition dynamics. Concerned with the prevalent lack of attention for the spatial dimensions of sustainability transitions in most studies, this paper seeks to unpick and make explicit sustainability transition geographies from the vantage point of economic geography. The paper argues that there are two interrelated problems requiring attention: the institutional embeddedness of socio-technical development processes within specific territorial spaces, and an explicit multi-scalar conception of socio-technical trajectories. Following these arguments, the paper concludes that transitions research would do well to take a closer look at the geographical unevenness of transition processes from the perspective of global networks and local nodes.

The sustainability challenges associated with increasing demand and generation of electricity require a far-reaching transformation of the energy system. Smart grid technologies are expected to play a major role in such sectoral transformation. While a growing body of literature is concerned with the dynamics and particularities of sectoral transformation, most contributions have focused on exogenous shocks or new technological developments as drivers of change. This paper complements the existing perspectives by exploring the role of actors as catalysts for transformation. Within the field of smart grid, we study the transformative influence of ICT firms on the energy sector in Europe. More specifically, we analyze actor participation in 450 European smart grid projects between 2000 and 2011 as well as acquisitions in the field. We find that incumbent firms from the ICT sector have gained influence and drive transformation through the creation of variety, in terms of technology, business models and value chains. As a strategic reaction, electricity sector incumbents have recently acquired many start-ups specialized in ICT technology and thus expanded their competence base. We conclude that entrants from another sector can be important catalysts for sectoral transformation and should be analyzed more systematically in transition studies.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of key research contributions on the topic of service strategies in manufacturing by focusing on descriptions of the phenomenon and theoretical explanations of its evolution and financial consequences.
Design/methodology/approach – A summary analysis of the extant literature is provided. Valuable contributions and fundamental methodological issues are identified and discussed. Challenges, limitations and directions for future research avenues are also highlighted.
Findings – As a result of the analysis and discussion presented, the concept of service-driven manufacturing is integrated through the provision, evolution and impact of services in industrial settings.
Practical implications – The paper contains guidelines for manufacturing managers interested in the evolution from products to services in different industries.
Originality/value – The paper is expected to be used as a relevant source of ideas and guidance for all those interested in doing research in services strategies in manufacturing.

The current paper focuses on absorptive capacity in the context of strategic innovation. Strategic innovation aims at a re-conceptualisation of business models, the creation of uncontested market spaces, and leaps in customer value. By using the learning-process perspective of absorptive capacity (exploratory, assimilative, transformative, and exploitative learning processes), we suggest that transformative learning processes in particular, play a key role in strategic innovation. In addition, a follower strategy and participative role in the knowledge network, instead of a first-mover strategy and a dominant role in the knowledge network, do indeed promote strategic innovation. Companies should not only manage the accumulation of external knowledge, but also adapt their combinative capabilities (systematisation, coordination, and socialisation of knowledge) in order to succeed with strategic innovation. The findings yield a set of research propositions for further academic and managerial consideration. Two longitudinal case studies of European electricity providers form the empirical background.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intentional formation of business networks in the wastewater industry. It enriches the theory-building of the formation of business networks by drawing on theoretical contributions to business networks and capabilities. The paper describes, assesses and predicts scenarios relevant to the formation of business networks in the wastewater industry.
Design/methodology/approach - The research methodology employed is based on multiple sources of data in a multi-method design, interpreting potential scenarios of business networks.
Findings - The findings reveal that water scarcity, population growth and economic constrains jeopardize existing business networks in the wastewater industry. Two potential scenarios: re-inventing the centralized system through on-site systems for mass-markets; and expanding on-site systems into mass-markets seem realizable. A comparison of the two scenarios suggests that the first scenario is in a superior position to utilize the business opportunities offered.
Research limitations/implications - Research limitations arise from the qualitative nature of the research undertaken.
Practical implications - Capability alignments and barriers suggest that the re-inventing the centralized system through on-site systems for mass-markets scenario, is the most suitable for implementation. The knowledge gained allows managers to outline a specific approach for developing the capabilities required, in order to take advantage of the alignments and overcome the barriers that may exist.
Originality/value - The paper highlights that building theories of business networks may benefit from combining the formation of business networks with dynamic and operational capabilities.

This article investigates the interplay of expectation dynamics and innovation processes at the level of organizations and at the innovation system level. We examine how different kinds of organizations contributed and responded to a recent hype and disappointment cycle in the field of stationary fuel cells. Among others, we trace how innovation and discourse activities changed and we explain the observed differences in strategic responses. We show that the sensitivity of organizations to expectation dynamics depends on at least three factors: the strategic embedding of the new technology, the organization's dependence on external legitimacy and its role in the innovation system. Moreover, we show that – in their aggregation – strategic responses affected the level of the technological innovation system as well. Not only did the pace and direction of innovation activities change, but structures such as actor constellations and institutions were also modified. Our study thus provides insights into the interplay of expectation and innovation dynamics, which is important for our understanding of larger transformation processes, e.g. toward more sustainable modes of energy supply.

Regarding multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), the problem of generating alternatives has not received the attention it deserves. Most research is currently devoted to the problem of alternative selection, where it is assumed that a set of appropriate alternatives is already given. This paper addresses the generation of potential alternatives in the domain of sanitation systems planning and decision-making. A compatibility assessment procedure is proposed to determine the set of technically feasible or potential sanitation system alternatives. This is based on a clear definition of such an alternative containing sub-processes that include a user interface, storage, conveyance treatment and reuse/disposal. A newly developed compatibility matrix is applied to identify incompatibilities between the options of the sub-processes.
A potential sanitation system alternative is therefore defined by the absence of two-by-two incompatibility between all its options.
The compatibility assessment acts as a first filter on the set of sanitation system alternatives to eliminate those that are inoperable before the feasibility assessment. The objective of both steps is to obtain a set of alternatives that are of reasonable and manageable size from which the final solution may be selected.

Previous research has shown that formal networks can play a crucial role in the formation of technological innovation systems (TIS). Firms and other actors collaborate in formal networks not only to generate new knowledge but also to strategically create and shape supportive system resources such as technology specific R&D programs. This paper takes a closer look at the resources, which are developed and deployed by networks to facilitate the building up of a TIS. Networks rely not only on the organizational resources of their members but also on new resources developed at the network level including network governance structures, trust among network members, a common understanding of the strategic goals or a good reputation of the network. Our analysis shows that the capacity of networks to fulfill different tasks of system building especially depends on the network resources they are able to establish. With the differentiation of organizational, network and system resources we introduce a conceptual framework, which makes three important contributions. It highlights the strategic nature of (innovation) system building; it allows us comparing the contribution of different actors and formal networks in this regard; and it improves our understanding of how firm and system level processes are intertwined.

Purpose: This article explores service business development by small- and medium-sized equipment manufacturers (SMEMs). It focuses on underlying dynamic and operational capabilities in service business development.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The research design is based on case study research with nine companies from Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Findings: The findings are twofold. First, the authors elaborate the phases and capabilities necessary for service business development. Second, they argue that these phases and capabilities depend on sales channels (direct sales versus indirect sales through distributors) and customer structures (a limited number of strategic customers versus many end-customers). SMEMs selling directly to a limited number of strategic customers develop organizational capabilities through four phases: (1) consolidation of service offerings, (2) job enlargements in organizational functions, (3) job enlargement in the key account teams, and (4) orchestration of partners to widen the solutions offered to customers. SMEMs selling indirectly through distributors to many customers develop organizational capabilities through the following four phases: (1) rearranging collaboration with distributors, (2) enlarging the service competencies of distributors, (3) modifying distributors into subsidiaries, and (4) enlarging jobs in the sales function of the subsidiaries.
Research Limitations/Implications: The research limitations are due mainly to the intrinsic nature of qualitative research.
Practical Implications: Managers can obtain guidance for service business development from the phases and capabilities described in the paper.
Originality/Value: The study offers a comprehensive framework for assisting researchers in conceptualizing service business development and operationalizing capabilities. The results provide testable propositions that can be used to guide future research.

Technological innovation systems and the multi-level framework are closely related concepts for the study of far-reaching technological change. They draw on common theoretical roots and analyze similar empirical phenomena. However, they have developed rather independent research strands over the past few years. The paper reviews the state of the art of both concepts and explores commonalities as well as differences. Against this background, we outline first elements of a path towards an integrated framework that combines the strengths of the two approaches and allows providing a better understanding of radical innovation processes and socio-technical transformations.

The technological innovation systems (TIS) literature has focused strongly on actors, networks and institutions in early development phases of specific technologies. Structures and processes concerned with setting up and developing end-user markets have gained much less attention. Especially in maturing innovation systems, such market-related structures play a decisive role for the long-term success of innovations. The present paper proposes a conceptual framework for analyzing TIS substructures oriented at specific end-user markets. We apply this framework to the creation and maturation of different market segments for photovoltaic applications in Germany. The paper concludes by outlining implications of a more differentiated conceptualization of market processes for TIS research.

Several strategic planning approaches have been proposed for dealing with future uncertainties in the urban water infrastructure sector. We identify three well established perspectives that address uncertainties in strategic decisions: an adaptive perspective, focusing on an incremental adaptation of existing structures as a reaction to unforeseen developments, a modeling perspective, focusing on an improved characterization of future context conditions and a managerial perspective, focusing on increasing the flexibility of the infrastructure organization. Despite their virtues, these approaches have definite weaknesses in their approach to uncertainty: they often consider a restricted scope of alternatives, they face substantial difficulties in predicting context conditions over time periods of decades and often consider objectives and tradeoffs only implicitly. We elaborate and illustrate with a case study a fourth perspective that may compensate for these specific weaknesses and complement the established strategic planning approaches. This perspective is based on a discursive, qualitative assessment of key elements in the strategic planning process among a selected set of local stakeholders and decision makers. We maintain that this approach leads to a more explicit and reflexive treatment of future uncertainty, conflicting objectives and a broadening of the considered alternatives and therefore to a more robust decision-making process.

Companies that find innovative ways to manage capabilities gain competitive advantages. The results of multiple case studies of capital goods manufacturing companies suggest that management innovation contributes to dynamic capabilities. The findings confirm the importance of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring as dynamic capabilities. Management innovation differs in terms of whether it contributes to sensing, seizing, or reconfiguring. The findings describe issues of management innovation, such as key change agents and utilization (motivation, invention, implementation, as well as theorizing and labeling), which facilitate sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring. Maintaining capability-driven competitive advantages is not limited to the innovation of products and services, but should also address management innovation that drives dynamic capabilities. The present study relies on a novel conceptualization of dynamic capabilities through management innovation. This conceptualization advances theory-building on the issue of dynamic capabilities.

This paper examines the relationship among the complexity of customer needs, customer centricity, innovativeness, service differentiation, and business performance within the context of companies that have made a service transition from pure goods providers to service providers. A survey of 332 manufacturing companies provides the basis for the empirical investigation. One key finding is that a strong emphasis on service differentiation can lead to a manufacturing firm's strategies for customer centricity being less sensitive to increasingly complex customer needs, which can increase a firm's payoff for customer centricity. In contrast, the payoff from innovativeness appears to be higher if the firm focuses its resources on either product or service innovation; that is, a dual focus does not work well. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for researchers and managers.

Purpose – Despite the proven benefits of high-performing spare parts logistics, recommendations on how to organize spare parts logistics in China are rather rare. The absence of spare parts logistics concepts for China is surprising, since the spare part business is the profit pool of the capital goods industry: spare parts create about 17 percent of the industry's total revenue. The margins involved in this spare parts revenue are, on average, 25 percent compared to 2-3 percent of the capital goods. This paper aims to offer recommendations to increase spare parts logistics performance.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted an extensive benchmarking project with a variety of firms (focus group and single case study) in order to gain a better understanding of spare parts logistics in China. By reviewing the first benchmarking findings with a single company that struggled to achieve sufficient spare parts logistics performance, additional insight was gained into how spare parts logistics should be organized in China.
Findings – The paper attempts to provide a better understanding of the necessary changes for improving logistics performance in the Chinese market. It analyzes the necessary changes to achieve a cutting-edge logistics solution, and shows how companies can implement the solution.
Research limitations/implications – Research limitations come from the qualitative nature of the research.
Practical implications – Managers can use the results obtained in this study to challenge their current logistics practices and develop a project procedure on how to initiate logistics projects that lead to cutting-edge logistics performance.
Originality/value – Rather than concentrating on performance benchmarks of the supply chain of spare parts or specific aspects of spare parts management, the paper develops the setting up of a cutting-edge logistics solution for China and Asia. The cutting-edge solution is based on two main pillars: companies should try to develop logistics solutions for Asia that consider existing Asian and Chinese constraints instead of taking the logistics practices used in mature markets and trying to adapt them to the Chinese market, and the development of the logistics solution should be in intensive collaboration with the logistics providers.

Purpose – The article aims to investigate how product manufacturing firms can configure their global service approach.
Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative, multi-case research design was employed.
Findings – The following four global service approaches could be identified: integrated and ethnocentric; integrated and polycentric; separated and polycentric; and separated and geocentric.
Research limitations/implications – The research findings are limited in generalizability because of the qualitative research approach.
Practical implications – Exploring global forms of and supply chain configurations for services supports the efforts of manufacturing firms in developing new service-based and relationship-based value propositions.
Originality/value – The study contributes to the debate on integrating versus separating the service organization. It offers a complementary explanation on integrating and separating the service business, through a differentiation into central and local (market) organizations.

Purpose – Literature is relatively sparse on describing how companies should align their determinants for service innovations with their different types of service strategies. This study seeks to explore the alignment between three types of service strategies and determinants for service innovations.
Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative, multi-case research design on 12 Western European capital goods manufacturers including 24 service innovation projects was employed. The study is based on multiple sources of evidence: internal documentation of service innovation and development projects and, most importantly, interview data and participation in internal innovation workshops. Traditional inductive research methods were used to analyze the case studies.
Findings – These indicate that aligning service strategies with determinants for service innovations is very complex. The configurations of the determinants are associated with the innovation success. Alternative configurations of determinants can create counterproductive effects and can limit the success of service innovation projects as well as implementation of service strategies.
Research limitations/implications – The study is based on interviews and case studies, but the external validity (generalizability) of the alignments could not be assessed accurately. Future research would benefit from insights obtained from quantitative data. The findings supplement existing research on success factors for the service business in manufacturing companies.
Practical implications – The findings imply that managers contemplating a specific service strategy have to consider the service innovation and reframe the determinant for service innovations accordingly. Companies trying to implement an after-sales service strategy should focus on a narrow range of determinants for service innovations. The resulting configurations guide managers to set up an efficient and effective service innovation management that helps them to implement their service strategy through successful service innovation project.
Originality/value – This empirical study shows that the configuration of determinants for service innovation differs for each service strategy. Whereas, the few similarities in determinants on service innovation are mainly other applications of existing theories on service innovation, the differences modify the existing theories.

This article introduces the new journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (EIST). We consider its key terms and offer a survey of relevant theoretical and empirical insights, policy issues and research challenges. Four theoretical approaches to studying sustainability transitions are identified. The treatise ends with a synopsis of the 19 articles in this inaugural issue and a list of suggested research themes.

Purpose – This paper seeks to utilise Prahalad's five activities of co-creation (customer engagement, self-service, customer involvement, problem-solving, and co-design) to explore how value co-creation occurs in the context of a public-transport service provider.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a single qualitative case study of the Swiss federal railway operator (SBB).
Findings – The findings enrich understanding of value co-creation by showing that the case firm is not merely a value facilitator, but has increasingly become a value co-creator through the five co-creation activities noted above. Organisations should take a comprehensive view of value co-creation if they are to exploit its full strategic potential.
Research limitations/implications – The study is a single case study with a focus on the supplier perspective.
Practical implications – Public-transport operators should facilitate the active participation of customers in designing and implementing their processes and systems. Rather than relying on knowledge about the customers, customer-relationship management should be based on knowledge of the customers (that is, the knowledge that customers possess).
Originality/value – The paper provides a comprehensive framework to help organisations manage the value co-creation process. The study shows that a public-transport service provider is not restricted to making value propositions, but can actively influence and assist customers in their fulfilment of value-co-creation.

Dezentrale Technologien in der Siedlungswasserwirtschaft sind vielversprechende Lösungsansätze, wenn Wasserinfrastruktursysteme neu errichtet werden müssen. Heute sind dezentrale Kleinkläranlagen etablierte Lösungen in Nischenanwendungen im ländlichen Raum von Industrieländern; Grauwasseraufbereitungsanlagen stellen ein relativ neues Produkt dar, das in wasserverbrauchsintensiven Gebäuden zunehmend eingesetzt wird. Hauptsächlich in Deutschland hat sich ein führendes Herstellerfeld entwickelt. In diesem Beitrag wird der Möglichkeit nachgegangen, dass in Zukunft weiterentwickelte dezentrale Wassertechnologien im Weltmarkt zu einer dominanten Standardlösung werden könnten. In diesem Feld könnte sich ein neuer starker Umwelttechnologie-Sektor entwickeln, der von der Kleinserienfertigung zur Massenproduktion wechselt. Andere Sektoren, wie die Hersteller von Windkraft, haben diese Entwicklung bereits vorgemacht. Basierend auf einer prospektiven Innovationssystemanalyse und einem Technology-Roadmapping- Workshop zeigt dieser Beitrag, in welchen Märkten und mit welchen Produkten eine derartige Sektorentwicklung mittel- bis langfristig vorstellbar ist.

Electricity generation from hydropower is responsible for a large part of the human impacts on water resources in the Alps. Attempts at finding an encompassing mitigation approach to these impacts are often confronted with high levels of societal conflict. Therefore, an integrative approach has to consider both ecological and political/social aspects of this economic activity. In the following, we will present an integrative mitigation approach that was developed as an eco-label for electricity in Switzerland. This label was developed and implemented in the early 2000s and has meanwhile been accepted as an environmental standard for hydropower operation in many other countries. The chapter emphasizes the interdisciplinary competencies needed as well as the potential benefits of an integrative approach to the problem.

Sustainability transitions have repeatedly been demanded in various economic sectors to confront global environmental problems. The present paper analyses the role of strategic planning processes for improving the prospects of achieving sustainable transitions in infrastructure sectors. Current planning approaches in these sectors tend to perpetuate the established socio-technical configurations by neglecting context uncertainties, by ignoring radical system alternatives and by focusing on narrow value considerations. In order to improve the prospects for sustainable transitions, more reflexive and discursive strategic planning methods are needed. We present the Regional Infrastructure Foresight methodology as a specific procedural proposal and analyse results from its application to a case study in the Swiss sanitation sector.

The requirements for urban wastewater management organisations in the field of strategic planning have risen significantly during recent years. Increasing uncertainties regarding requirements to be fulfilled in future, options for action and objectives require new methods and approaches. This article shows how strategic planning methods can be implemented in public wastewater organisations. This is illustrated by experiences from three Swiss wastewater management associations.

Infrastructure sectors in general, and urban water management in particular, have developed over the past couple of decades within the confines of a rather narrow and stable socio-technical regime. Nowadays, these infrastructures are increasingly confronted with uncertain context conditions, a broadened spectrum of technological alternatives and an increasing heterogeneity of value positions. As a consequence, the longterm sustainability of these sectors has been questioned by many commentators. Of particular importance is the way strategic decisions are made. Current approaches tend to block important opportunities for sustainable transformation. It is argued here that a more reflexive, discursive and participative approach to strategic planning is needed. The paper introduces «Regional Infrastructure Foresight» (RIF) as a method which combines foresight on regional framework conditions with a stakeholder assessment of a broad range of system options. The paper presents the methodology in some detail and discusses the main lessons learned through three empirical applications in the Swiss sanitation sector. Based on these experiences, it is argued that strategic decision making in infrastructures is of high relevance for regional policy and therefore warrants more attention in future research in economic and political geography.

In this article, we put forward a concept for the identification and analysis of future development options of technological innovation systems. The key element of our approach, the so-called variation analysis, is a methodology to identify coherent socio-technical and organizational variants within a specific innovation field. Consistent combinations of these two dimensions may be interpreted as nuclei for alternative future developments of innovation systems. The method may be used in discursive foresight processes to inform strategy formulation of firms or policy makers who see a utility in furthering the innovation field. The paper has a focus on developing the theoretical background and the analytical structure of the methodology. Empirically, we illustrate the method for the innovation system of biomass digestion in Switzerland.

The sustainable transformation of infrastructure sectors represents a challenge of prime importance worldwide. Due to long life times of infrastructures, strategic decision making has to explicitly consider uncertainties in context conditions, value considerations and available technological alternatives. However currently, strategic infrastructure planning is often carried out in a very narrow perspective. The present paper argues that foresight informed strategic planning, allows addressing trade-offs related to context uncertainties, value conflicts and sustainability deficits in a structured way. The paper introduces a specific procedural proposal, the Regional Infrastructure Foresight method (RIF) and illustrates its potential virtues through an application to urban water management planning in a Swiss region (Kiesental).

This Eawag project addresses the various decision-making aspects in sanitation system and technology selection as a support tool for choosing the best available options to secure sustainable sanitation systems.

This case study seeks to show, from an engineering perspective, the importance of historical insights. Urban water infrastructures and particularly the case of rainwater will be used as an example, since this is an issue which became increasingly controversial in Germany in the 1970s. It is remarkable that this happened, since this issue had apparently been settled during the development period of the conventional approach (closure). As the controversy emerged again, not only did it return to the engineering agenda, but by then engineering itself had specialized into separate sub-disciplinary fields. The analysis focuses on why and how the infiltration of rainwater succeeded in becoming established as an innovation in the field of sewage disposal rather than in that of water supply. Conclusions point to the context in which debates take place and decisions are made. Special consideration is given to the boundaries between these two most important sub-disciplinary fields of engineering, as well as to those between experts and laypeople. Apart from knowledge of certain techniques, history provides insights into the construction of the context and the interrelatedness of technology and society-into the co-construction of socio-technical solutions by society.

Network-bound infrastructure systems as electricity, gas, water and telecommunications are currently undergoing transformations on various levels and dimensions. Liberalization, technological innovations and socio-cultural dynamics are part of this. For analyzing these ongoing transformation dynamics as well as exploring future developments of utility systems, a theoretical concept is necessary which spans production, consumption and governance, different levels, and also different sectors. This paper argues that the multi-level perspective is a fruitful starting point allowing the identification of interrelated transformation dynamics in production, consumption and governance, but that multi-regime dynamics need more emphasis, particularly in a future oriented analysis.

This project was established to explore the consequences of structural change in German utility sectors and to raise awareness of the need for coordinated action by stakeholders as well as for the development of strategies for sustainable development. A three step procedure was applied comprising socio-technical scenarios, sustainability assessment and strategies for critical innovation processes. Interactions between four utility sectors - electricity, natural gas, water and sanitation, telecommunications - were considered. Stakeholders involved in production, consumption and governance have been involved at all stages. A multi-level approach was applied to link developments at the sector level with general societal developments and the dynamics of specific fields of innovation. The project also aimed at developing a general methodology for "sustainability foresight".

Technological innovation systems and the multi-level framework are closely related concepts for the study of far-reaching technological change. They draw on common theoretical roots and analyze similar empirical phenomena. However, they have developed rather independent research strands over the past few years. The paper reviews the state of the art of both concepts and explores commonalities as well as differences. Against this background, we outline first elements of a path towards an integrated framework that combines the strengths of the two approaches and allows providing a better understanding of radical innovation processes and socio-technical transformations.

The innovation systems approach has been successfully established as a conceptual basis for an encompassing analysis of actors, networks and institutions that influence innovation processes. Here we present an approach that concentrates on the actors in a selected technological innovation system. The intention is to specify current or potential contributions of actors, or actor groups, to innovation system performance and dynamics. This will be achieved by explicitly relating actor level characteristics such as innovation strategies and resource endowments to system level characteristics like actor configurations, system functions and performance. We illustrate the approach with a case study on stationary fuel cells in Germany.