TY - JOUR
T1 - Analysis of institutional work on innovation trajectories in water infrastructure systems of Melbourne, Australia
AU - Ferguson, Briony Cathryn
AU - Brown, Rebekah Ruth
AU - de Haan, Fjalar Johannes
AU - Deletic, Ana
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Infrastructure systems are facing sustainability challenges but are locked into their current practices. Transitions studies aims to understand trajectories towards new socio-technical regimes and argue for agency-centric perspectives to explain processes of change. This paper adopts an institutional lens, examining the institutional creation processes needed for maturing innovations within established systems. Three innovations in Melbourne s water system were selected as empirical cases: desalination, wastewater recycling and stormwater harvesting. Each had a different institutional alignment with the established regime and different trajectories between key stages of maturity, from pre-niche to niche, niche-regime and regime. The paper examines the purposes and types of institutional work undertaken to support each stage: cultural-cognitive, normative and regulative. Their trajectories were influenced by the regime alignment and characterised by maturation speed, institutional work undertaken and limiting conditions for further maturation. Cross-case comparison enabled derivation of hypotheses on the linkage between institutional work and innovation maturity.
AB - Infrastructure systems are facing sustainability challenges but are locked into their current practices. Transitions studies aims to understand trajectories towards new socio-technical regimes and argue for agency-centric perspectives to explain processes of change. This paper adopts an institutional lens, examining the institutional creation processes needed for maturing innovations within established systems. Three innovations in Melbourne s water system were selected as empirical cases: desalination, wastewater recycling and stormwater harvesting. Each had a different institutional alignment with the established regime and different trajectories between key stages of maturity, from pre-niche to niche, niche-regime and regime. The paper examines the purposes and types of institutional work undertaken to support each stage: cultural-cognitive, normative and regulative. Their trajectories were influenced by the regime alignment and characterised by maturation speed, institutional work undertaken and limiting conditions for further maturation. Cross-case comparison enabled derivation of hypotheses on the linkage between institutional work and innovation maturity.
UR - http://goo.gl/3QF53m
U2 - 10.1016/j.eist.2013.12.001
DO - 10.1016/j.eist.2013.12.001
M3 - Article
SN - 2210-4224
VL - 15
SP - 42
EP - 64
JO - Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
JF - Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
ER -