Niche Management and its Contribution to Regime Change: The Case of Innovation in Sanitation

Strategic niche management (SNM) implies that new technologies are applied in so-called niches, in which they are protected against mainstream market selection. A major question currently subject to debate is through which processes niches can bring about any wider changes at the level of socio-technical regimes. This paper examines this question, using present-day developments in innovation in sanitation in Western Europe as an example. It is concluded that although SNM theorists emphasize the importance of (first- and second-order) learning, such learning processes are often hampered in practice. This may be due to the fact that existing niche-based approaches put too much emphasis on technological experimentation rather than on experimentation with forms of social organization. Therefore, attention should be redirected to sustainability concepts and guiding principles rather than technologies. As an addition to existing approaches, the authors suggest and elaborate on a new form of niche management called conceptual niche management.     

Niche Management and its Contribution to Regime Change: The Case of Innovation in Sanitation

Strategic niche management (SNM) implies that new technologies are applied in so-called niches, in which they are protected against mainstream market selection. A major question currently subject to debate is through which processes niches can bring about any wider changes at the level of socio-technical regimes. This paper examines this question, using present-day developments in innovation in sanitation in Western Europe as an example. It is concluded that although SNM theorists emphasize the importance of (first- and second-order) learning, such learning processes are often hampered in practice. This may be due to the fact that existing niche-based approaches put too much emphasis on technological experimentation rather than on experimentation with forms of social organization. Therefore, attention should be redirected to sustainability concepts and guiding principles rather than technologies. As an addition to existing approaches, the authors suggest and elaborate on a new form of niche management called conceptual niche management.     

Rank-order tournaments and selection

Rank-order tournaments are often presented as devices for aligning incentives in a principal-agent setting. In most of this literature agents are expected to be identical so that the principal is indifferent ex ante as to who wins the contest, implying that the selection properties of the tournament can be ignored. In this paper we consider a tournament which is not necessarily symmetric, and in which agent type is private information. The principal cares about who wins, but the basic tournament will not achieve perfect selection; the lower-type agent may sometimes win. In a two-player tournament we present a simple reward system in which the winner's reward depends upon which (if any) of two “test standards” is passed; conditions are presented under which this system allows the principal to choose the best agent. This system can be extended in a simple manner to rank types in ann-player tournament. We suggest that the theory can be applied to internal labor markets and research contests.     

Endogenous Selection of Institutions and Their Exogenous Effects

Institutions shape social outcomes, yet institutions themselves are products of political choices. When institutional choices are determined by the same political and social processes that they shape, institutions are endogenously selected. Here I address the question of whether this endogenous institutional selection necessarily implies endogenous institutional effects. If it does, the use of institutional parameters as independent variables explaining policy outcomes and properties of the resulting political regimes, widespread in the literature on comparative political institutions, is hard to justify. I argue, however, that strategic choice of the rules of the game implies designers' ability to obtain their preferred institutional effects only under conditions of complete information. Under incomplete information, ex-post institutional effects do not need to be endogenous, since at the time of designing the rules the designers were not in position to control the selection of these effects. The reason why the choice of the rules does not imply the choice of their effects lies in the intervening and interactive (rather than additive) role played by the environmental parameters, including players' own characteristics, that are not revealed at the time of the institutional choice. Additionally to the model which illustrates the logic of the argument and the workings of intervening structural effects, I find supporting evidence in the processes of design of election laws in post-communist Europe, where stages of design and implementation followed each other in a very quick succession yet were characterized by substantial changes in manifested institutional preferences of the key political players.     

The Organizational Embeddedness of Social Capital: A Comparative Case Study of Two Voluntary Organizations

Social capital is a popular, but contested concept. It draws attention to the way in which social relations and constructed forms of social organization can produce outcomes on individual and collective levels. However, it is often founded on individualistic, rational-choice models of human behavior that neglect its embeddedness. I explore the embeddedness of social capital through a comparative case study of two voluntary sport organizations in the UK. Through close analysis of in-depth interviews and longitudinal observation, I look at the processes of social capital development and the way socio-organizational context and identity shape these processes.     

The Affluent Society after Twenty-five Years

This paper places Commons and his friend, Edward Alsworth Ross, in the context of the attack by Richard T. Ely and Lester Frank Ward on a conception of history that attributed all progress in human welfare to natural processes — Darwinian natural selection and market mechanisms. According to this conception, interference with these natural processes would be counterproductive. Ward, a confirmed Darwinian, coined the term "artificial selection" when he proposed an alternate conception that attributed most progress to the disciplined application of human intelligence. Ross adapted Ward's artificial-natural distinction to the problem of social order, arguing that random variation and survival of the fittest can generate social controls that preserve order in small communities, but that only artificial social controls can keep order in complex societies. Ross's distinction made its way into the Legal Foundations of Capitalism and Institutional Economics where Commons focused on the evolution of what Ross labeled artificial social controls — laws governing the wage bargain and the behavior of corporations. In the process Commons confronted the problem of deliberation, the problem of obtaining intelligent actions and decisions from passionate, biased humans organized in democratic societies.     

Developing post-normal technologies for sustainability

The last two decades have seen the development of an array of techniques and practices aimed at promoting sustainability. For many, results have been disappointing. There are charges that supposedly new organisational approaches remain embedded in managerialist, functionalist and anti-dialogic frameworks that are a significant part of the problem. Similarly the technocratic scientization of public policy is viewed as ill-equipped to deal with the social, economic and ecological issues currently facing neo-liberal societies. In this paper we seek to interpret these frustrations and identify pathways that move beyond this. Specifically, we argue that the gap between sustainability rhetoric and sustainability practices can be reconceptualised through the practice of science as post-normal and through developing the notion of post-normal sustainability technologies (PNSTs). The exponents of post-normal science show why stakeholder engagement in sustainability (and other scientific) issues is critical for the legitimacy and quality of decisions and the admission of complexity in decision-making and accountability processes. Building on this now well-established foundation we seek to characterise, and give examples of, PNSTs as tools for achieving this participation; wherein stakeholders assume expertise and interact with those possessing more traditional forms of expertise in order to co-produce knowledge about sustainability. Recognition of ideological and value diversity is also central to the post-normal sustainability agenda and with PNSTs, the values-based nature of the issues involved is articulated in a way that seeks to bring politics openly into the picture. To this end we identify processes that are emerging in the literature and in practice that will enable PNSTs. These include extended peer communities and multi-actor heuristics, agonistic processes and new characterisations of citizenship that support moves to sustainability. In so doing, we believe that PNSTs offer “clumsy solutions” for “wicked problems” that can be engaged with in both the research and practice arenas as significant contributions to addressing urgent needs.     

Myths of information: the cultural impact of new information technologies

This paper discusses the beliefs that circulate in contemporary culture about new communication technologies. Considered together these beliefs express two mythological narratives about the meaning of the information revolution. (1) that new information technologies will empower individuals and transform both work and leisure; and (2) that such technologies can solve the problems of democracy in a post-industrial age. These myths are neither true nor false; rather they are the way that we make sense of our moment of history and a projection of the hopes we collectively project on to new technologies. In discussing these myths, this paper seeks to identify the signal cultural implications of new communication technologies.     

In search of general evolutionary principles: Why Darwinism is too important to be left to the biologists

Bioeconomics emphasizes the common ontological ground between economics and biology. However, this does not necessarily mean that both disciplines collapse into one. Instead it is proposed here that Darwinism provides a general, meta-theoretical framework for dealing with complex evolving systems, consisting of populations of varied and replicating entities, which are found in both nature and human society. There is no alternative to the core Darwinian principles of variation, selection and inheritance to explain the evolution of such systems. Neither the actual existence of human intentionality, nor the hypothetical existence of Lamarckian processes of acquired character inheritance, offer a barrier to the use of Darwinian explanations. However, while Darwinian principles are always necessary to explain complex evolving population systems, they are never sufficient on their own. Such a generalized Darwinism can accommodate several different stances found in the literature on bioeconomics and elsewhere.      

Are ‘Western’ Constitutions Relevant to Anything Other than the Countries they Serve?

This essay argues the universal relevance of the Western constitutional experience. It does so, however, not with reference to the commonalities of historical circumstance or the experience of specific states. Instead, we argue that just as events in the natural world must follow universal laws, the same it true about stable democracy, whether we are concerned with parliamentary or presidential systems, economically developed or undeveloped states, or whatever. We take as given that there necessarily exists universal principles of democratic constitutional design, even if those principles remain largely undiscovered. We argue further that discovery is more likely if we conceptualize constitutions as equilibrium selection devices and if we take as our starting point whatever understanding we possess about coordination and equilibrium selection in complex social processes, including the evolution and character of social norms and conventions.     

THE MARKET SELECTS THE WRONG FIRMS IN THE LONG RUN*

We consider the effects of free entry on the market structure and social welfare of an asymmetric Cournot oligopoly. Even if we allow for the existence of different types of firms initially, only one type (in almost all cases) can survive in the long run. Free entry leads an economy to a symmetric equilibrium, in which the excess entry theorem holds. Further, we consider the socially optimal policy for this economy. In cases of either (i) a concave demand (which implies strategic substitutability) or (ii) strategic complementarity (which implies a convex demand), the type of firms that should remain in the market to achieve social optimality does not necessarily coincide with the type of firms that will survive in the long run. The market may select not only the wrong number of firms but also the wrong type of firms in the long run.     

S-values and Bayesian weighted all-subsets regressions

This paper compares and contrasts Bayesian variable-exclusion methods proposed by Eduardo Ley and coauthors with methods proposed by Raftery and Sala-i-Martin et al. and with the s-values proposed by myself. A distinction is drawn between estimation uncertainty which is the focus of Ley׳s research and model ambiguity which arises in Ley׳s work and is the focus of my own recent proposal. The discussion is organized around the prior covariance matrix, which needs to be diagonal to support all-subsets regressions. The basic question addressed here is: what aspects of the prior covariance matrix can be taken as known, what aspects can be estimated and what aspects require a sensitivity analysis because they are neither known nor estimable. When diagonality is in doubt, we are more-or-less forced into a model ambiguity sensitivity mode because the data are never rich enough credibly to estimate the full prior covariance matrix. When diagonality is assumed, the data evidence, though very limited, can help to estimate the diagonal elements, but this literature has not yet produced a compelling conventional treatment which will necessarily include both estimation uncertainty and model ambiguity as they relate both to the diagonal values and to the rest of the prior covariance matrix. But there has been a lot of progress.     

联盟控制机制与知识获取：伙伴选择的调节作用

基于中国209家制造商以及944家供应商的问卷调查，采用阶层线性回归的实证方法，分析契约控制和关系控制对供应商知识获取的作用，并将公开选择和社会选择两种联盟伙伴选择方式作为两种控制机制共同作用的边界条件进行研究。结果发现，契约控制和关系控制均能促进联盟知识获取，两者之间是替代的关系；公开选择增强了这种替代效应，社会选择减弱了这种替代效应。     

Evolutionary social science and universal Darwinism

How should social scientists, inclined to an evolutionary theory of aspects of human culture like science, technology, business organization and practice, react to proposals that they embrace a “Universal Darwinism”? The most prominent variety of Universal Darwinism argues for close counterparts between the variables and mechanisms of cultural evolution and biological evolution, for example proposing the concept of “memes” as units of culture. Other Universal Darwinists propose, more flexibly, that human culture and biological species both change over time through a process that involves variation and selection, but that the details of the processes may be very different. This essay argues that the narrower form of Universal Darwinism should not be acceptable to social scientists. The differences in the details of cultural evolution and biological evolution are considerable. On the other hand, if Universal Darwinism provides a roomy intellectual tent welcoming scholars studying a variety of topics, with the unifying element being a dynamic theory involving variation and selection, but with the key variables and mechanisms being recognized as perhaps differing greatly between biology and human culture, we can be happy in that camp. Evolutionary Social Science and Universal Darwinism.     

Arenas of expectations for hydrogen technologies

Technological development is often described as an evolutionary process of variation, selection and retention. Different technologies are seen as variations, while the market and other institutions operate as a selection environment. It is less understood, however, how variation and selection relate in the case of emerging technologies. In this paper we introduce the concept of arenas of expectations to examine the relationship between variation and selection processes. Expectations are of particular interest in a pre-market phase of innovation, when performance, cost and other market criteria are less articulated and not stable. In arenas of expectations ‘enactors’ of particular technological variations voice and maintain expectations, while ‘selectors’ will compare and assess the competing claims. We analyse the expectations work of both parties in a case study on metal hydrides for the on-board storage of hydrogen for automotive applications. The paper concludes with a framework of ‘arenas of expectations’ as the linchpin between the processes of variation and selection of emerging technologies.     

The Bioeconomics of Cooperation

When transactions and information are costly and exchange is non-simultaneous, ‘institutions matter’. They matter because exchange under these circumstances subjects the participants to potentially harmful behaviors by other participants, among which are: opportunistic behavior, agency, the free-rider problem, cheating, moral hazard, and adverse selection. Institutions constrain these behaviors, allowing the participants to take advantage of the gains from trade and specialization, and thereby facilitating cooperation. Individuals adhere to institutional rules because they gain by doing so. Because the individual gains are inseparable from the structure of the institutions, the institutions themselves necessarily become the focus of the analysis—as we see in the new institutional economics (NIE). The new group selection position in biology involves a similar shift in focus from the level of the individual to the group when studying the evolution of altruism. But some of the proponents of group selection go further, arguing that altruism in biology evolves because it is in the interest of the group, but not the individual. In fact, group level analysis is necessary in biology, as in the NIE, because it allows for the discovery of ‘institutions’ that constrain cheating, opportunistic behavior, etc., thereby making participation in the group in the long-run self-interest of the individual. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Marx's value forms and Hayek's rules: a reinterpretation in the light of the dichotomy between physis and nomos

This paper argues that both Marx and Hayek objected to the dichotomybetween physis and nomos, and offered concepts which integrate,or mediate between, the two. Marx's value forms and Hayek'srules aim to grasp something neither purely natural nor purelyartificial or social, but ‘socially natural’. Valueforms and rules are natural in the sense that they pre-existagents and are taken by agents as given. On the other hand,forms and rules are social in that production relations or spontaneousorder are reproduced as the unintended consequences of agents'using forms or following rules. Thus value forms and rules standas links between agents and production relations or spontaneousorder.     

Turning values concrete: the role and ways of business selection in local currency schemes

Alternative consumption schemes require the selection of producers and traders according to criteria and through processes that should make alternative values concrete. The way values turn concrete is crucial for the effectiveness of such projects. This paper investigates the ways criteria and processes are defined and their real meanings and uses through the case of associative local currencies. Drawing on the framework of proximities, it analyses local currency schemes as combining proximities (geographical and non-geographical) and selection processes set up for providers wishing to join. Selection processes may be based on a charter, an approval committee and screening criteria. The objectives of the selection, its measures in principle, the way in which it is applied as well as the practical consequences are discussed. Even when charters and formal participatory schemes for selecting providers are established, proximities appear as the keystone of selection and trust.     

Learning towards system innovation: Evaluating a systemic instrument

In this paper we develop an analytical framework for studying learning processes in the context of efforts to bring about system innovation by building new networks of actors who are willing to work on a change towards sustainable development. We then use it to evaluate two specific intervention programmes carried out by a self-proclaimed ‘system instrument’. The framework integrates elements from the Innovation Systems approach with a social learning perspective. The integrated model proposes essentially that these kinds of systemic instruments can serve to enhance conditions for social learning and that such processes may result in learning effects that contribute to system innovation by combating system imperfections. The empirical findings confirm the assumption that differences in learning can be explained by the existence or absence of conditions for learning. Similarly, the existence or creation of conducive conditions could be linked to the nature and quality of the interventions of the systemic instrument. We conclude that the investigated part of the hypothesised model has not been refuted and seems to have explanatory power. At the same time we propose that further research is needed among others on the relation between learning, challenging system imperfections and system innovation.     

Major transitions in ‘big’ history

‘Big’ history treats events between the Big Bang and contemporary technological life on Earth as a single narrative, suggesting that cosmological, biological and social processes can be treated similarly. An obvious trend in big history is the development of increasingly complex systems. This implies that the degree to which historical systems have deviated from thermodynamic equilibrium has increased over time. Recent theory suggests that step-wise changes in the work accomplished by a system can be explained using steady-state non-equilibrium thermodynamics. This paper argues that significant macro-historical events can therefore be characterized as transitions to steady states exhibiting persistently higher levels of thermodynamic disequilibrium which result in observably novel kinds or levels of organisation. Further, non-equilibrium thermodynamics suggests that such transitions should have particular temporal structures, beginning with sustainable energy innovations which result in novelties in organisation and in control mechanisms for maintaining the new organisation against energy fluctuations. We show how events in big history which qualify as historically significant by these criteria exhibit this internal structure. Big history thus obeys law-like processes, resulting in a common pattern of major transitions between steady-state historical regimes. This common process from cosmological to contemporary times makes big history a viable and relevant field of scientific study.