How to accelerate the design and development of low carbon
technologies?
Mari Ratinen
Doctoral student
Department of Management and Organisation
Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration
P.O. Box 479
00101 Helsinki, Finland
Tel. +358 (0)9 431331
Fax. +358 (0)9 4313 3275
Email: mari.ratinen@hanken.fi
Influence of societal context on development of low carbon technologies.
The common perception is that innovations improve competitive success; increase market share or revenue.
Development of innovation is assumed to be rational, purposeful and systematic (Drucker, 1985) and it is
assumed to progress in a pre-conceived pattern (Van de Ven, 1986). The environmental management literature
has emphasised ethos, ecology and market forces as drivers for innovations (see, e.g. Porter & Linde, 1995).
In this paper the process of innovation is assumed to be societally embedded. Subsequently, companies
participate in the process of innovation as parts of societies in which they operate, i.e. they are embedded in the
societal rationality (Granovetter, 1985; Whittington, 1993). The purpose of this paper is to analyse how societal
context influences the process of innovations. The focus is on energy innovations to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions. These kinds of innovations are particularly interesting, as they comprise a society, social reality,
businesses, the environment, technology and sustainable development, and the apparent contradictions and
tensions that exist between them.
To analyse the influence of societal context in the process of innovations this paper combines a dynamic
approach to culture with actor-network theory. According to Wright (1998) a culture is a static unit but a dynamic
entity that consists of groups of people who contest over societal meaning-making of key terms and concepts.
According to actor-network theory innovations are results of social processes where networks of actors develop
innovations in context and according to their interests (Latour, 1993; Law, 1992).
Based on these theories, this paper proposes a classification for analysing the end results of the processes of
innovations. According to actor-network theory an innovation is either successful or unsuccessful. According to
the dynamic theory of culture a change in meanings is required to produce a change in a society. The effect of
innovations on the societal meanings is estimated along a continuum of meaningless – considerable. By
combining these possible results an innovation can be producing more of the same (successful innovation with
meaningless effects on societal meanings), reproducing something new (successful innovation with
considerable effects on societal meanings), an unused innovation (unsuccessful innovation with meaningless
effects on societal meanings) or a lost cause (unsuccessful innovation with considerable effects on societal
meanings).
A case study of development of energy innovations in Finland
This paper presents a qualitative case study of energy innovations in Finland. The research material is collected
from interviews and from research reports and other written materials. Finland was chosen for this case study as
it is considered to be good representations of the Nordic type of problem defining and policymaking, which
differs quite considerably from the Anglo-American one, that tend to dominate the mains stream innovation
literature (Byrkeflot, 2003; Touraine, 1987). Though considerable investments are made for technology
development In Finland, it would appear that dominant groups support “more of the same“ innovations and
renewable energy technologies are “lost causes”.
References
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