Embedded industrial production systems: Lessons from waste management in zinc production

To meet the sustainability challenge private companies must implement corporate strategies and adopt novel technologies. The technical and social embeddedness of industrial production systems, however, complicates these systems' transition towards sustainability. In the paper, mechanisms and conditions are reported for the development and implementation of waste management options in embedded industrial production systems. The focus is on the Dutch zinc production industry, which had to deal with a major waste problem; the generation of jarosite. The industry's options were to increase the jarosite waste storage capacity, to develop a jarosite treatment process or to switch to a zinc-ore of low-iron content whereby no jarosite waste would be generated anymore. Required conditions appeared to be a combination of technological capability and technical embedding and favourable economics. Case study research, however, revealed that adequate stakeholder management is crucial to address social pressure exerted and to obtain external acceptance for any transition strategy. Whilst appropriate, internal technological capabilities are important, effective interactions with and enrolment of various firm-external actors are crucial. In the case of zinc, access to the heterogeneous external actor network was critical for the development of the jarosite treatment solution direction. In conclusion, both the technical, organizational and social embedding of new technologies are crucial for successful implementation.     

Regime shifts to sustainability through processes of niche formation: The approach of strategic niche management

The unsustainability of the present trajctories of technical change in sectors such as transport and agriculture is widely recognized. It is far from clear, however, how a transition to more sustainable modes of development may be achieved. Sustainable technologies that fulful important user requirements in terms of performance and price are most often not available on the market. Ideas of what might be more sustainable technologies exist, but the long development times, uncertainty about market demand and social gains, and the need for change at different levels in organization, technology, infastructure and the wider social and institutional context-provide a great barrier. This raises the question of how the potential of more sustainable technologies and modes of development may be exploited. In this article we describe how technical change is locked into dominant technological regimes, and present a perspective, called strategic niche management, on how to expedite a transition into a new regime. The perspective consists of the creation and/or management of nichesfor promising technologies.     

Incentivizing sustainable waste management

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the integration of economic and non-economic concepts of waste management and sustainability to achieve new insights to sustainable waste management. Since landfilling will continue to be a significant waste management method, our theory and practice of sustainable waste management should focus upon incentivizing the development of more sustainable landfills. The model sheds light on the design of efficient and fair landfill siting processes; how production inputs to bioreactor landfilling should be selected; and how management practices during the facility's operation phase can achieve greater economic, ecological and social sustainability.     

A coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy

This paper proposes a coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low-carbon economy, based on the coevolution of ecosystems, technologies, institutions, business strategies and user practices, within a multi-level micro-meso-macro perspective. This builds on and develops previous coevolutionary analyses of long-term technological and industrial change, and recent renewed interest within ecological economics on coevolutionary approaches. Previous work has analysed how the coevolution of technologies and institutions has led to the lock-in of current high-carbon energy systems; and how the coevolution of physical and social technologies and business strategies has brought significant material and welfare benefits to the minority of the world's population living in industrialised countries. The coevolutionary framework proposed here may be used to undertake: (1) detailed empirical analyses at a micro-meso level of the challenges relating to the innovation and adoption of particularly low-carbon technologies; (2) as a framework for analysing the multi-level interaction of social and technological elements within potential transition pathways to a low carbon energy system; (3) to assess the implications for economic growth and prosperity of a transition to a low carbon economy; and (4) to assist in the development of more formal, multi-level evolutionary economic models.     

Combining the technological innovation systems framework with the entrepreneurs’ perspective on innovation

For their technological sustainability innovations to become successful, entrepreneurs can strategically shape the technological field in which they are involved. The technological innovation systems (TISs) literature has generated valuable insights into the processes which need to be stimulated for the successful development and implementation of innovative sustainability technologies. To explore the applicability of the TIS framework from the perspective of entrepreneurs, we conducted a case study in the Dutch smart grids sector. We found that the TIS framework generally matches the perspectives of entrepreneurs. For its use by entrepreneurs, we suggest a slight adaptation of this framework. The process ‘Market formation’ needs to be divided into processes that are driven by the government and processes that are driven by entrepreneurs. There should be a greater emphasis on collaborative marketing, on changing user behaviour and preferences and on the development of fair and feasible business models.     

Sources of efficiency,productivity and output growth in Botswana agriculture

The purpose of this study is to explore reasons for the decline in agricultural performance in Botswana that has occurred during the implementation of a variety of policy measures, as well as the introduction of new technologies, and to identify ways in which it might be reversed. Panel data from six regions in Botswana (period 1979–2012) is analyzed with a stochastic output distance function and inefficiency effects model. We decompose agricultural output growth into; total factor productivity (TFP ) and changes in input use (factors of production). TFP is further decomposed into scale effects, technical efficiency and technological change. The results show that over the study period agricultural output grew at a very low rate of 0.072 percent per year, which is largely due to a growth in factors of production at 0.071 percent per year rather than TFP growth (which declined at 0.003 percent per year). We found that the decline in productivity has been due to technological regress and low growth in technical efficiency and scale efficiency. Policy options aimed at improving agricultural productivity and output growth will require the strengthening of extension services; improving the agronomic and husbandry management skills of farmers through training; and by encouraging farmers to adopt and utilize technologies that have been provided under existing policy programs.     

Biogeography and long-run economic development

The article models the transition from a hunter-gatherer economy to agricultural production, a crucial event in history which made possible the endogenous technological progress that ultimately led to the Industrial Revolution. We further present evidence showing that geographic and initial biogeographic conditions exerted decisive influence on the location and timing of transitions to sedentary agriculture, to complex social organization and, eventually, to modern industrial production. Evidence from a large cross-section of countries indicates that the effects of geography and biogeography on contemporary levels of economic development are remarkably strong, a result that contrasts with several recent studies where the effect runs solely through institutions.     

Developing Usability and Utility: A Comparative Study of the Users of New IT

The paper, based on a major comparative study of the introduction of management information systems in retailing, health and higher education, argues for a broader and more differentiated account of users in studies of technological innovation. End-users must incorporate new systems into their working lives and in so doing play a crucial and active part in embedding new systems into organizations. The particular focus of this paper is the interplay of two key aspects of the varied and developing relationships between users and new systems-usability and utility. By classifying discussions of usability into six distinct components, the paper recasts it as a multifaceted phenomenon that is as much social as it is technological. The development of utility is explored through a discussion of three different groups of users-one drawn from each research site. Each group is taken to exemplify different locations in and stances towards processes of techno-organizational change.     

Developing Usability and Utility: A Comparative Study of the Users of New IT

The paper, based on a major comparative study of the introduction of management information systems in retailing, health and higher education, argues for a broader and more differentiated account of users in studies of technological innovation. End-users must incorporate new systems into their working lives and in so doing play a crucial and active part in embedding new systems into organizations. The particular focus of this paper is the interplay of two key aspects of the varied and developing relationships between users and new systems-usability and utility. By classifying discussions of usability into six distinct components, the paper recasts it as a multifaceted phenomenon that is as much social as it is technological. The development of utility is explored through a discussion of three different groups of users-one drawn from each research site. Each group is taken to exemplify different locations in and stances towards processes of techno-organizational change.     

Sociotechnical regimes,technological innovation and corporate sustainability: from principles to action

Increased environmental and social responsibility awareness, while producing unique opportunities for sustainability-oriented innovations, has generated important challenges for companies. The path to sustainability requires corporate strategies that guarantee profitability, managing simultaneously environmental and social responsibilities. An attempt is made to provide an understanding of sustainable development thinking in business, discussing how the combination of the transition management, adaptive planning and sociotechnical approaches can contribute towards an effective implementation of sustainability-oriented innovations in business context. The article proposes a conceptual model, which incorporates this contribution, developed through a four-year action-research project carried out within a large Brazilian energy company – Petrobras. The authors argue that the adoption of the proposed model by other large firms operating in different societal sectors might trigger organisational changes related to current corporate practices of technological innovation management.     

Eco-efficiency guiding micro-level actions towards sustainability: Ten basic steps for analysis

This paper looks at the compatibility between technological improvements at the micro-level and sustainability at the macro-level. The two main approaches to prevent environmental degradation are technological improvement and economic degrowth. How do we establish the sustainability of technological options? LCA-type analysis of the technology system, combined with economic cost analysis, offers a first integrated eco-efficiency score. However, such a technology analysis focuses on micro-level technology relations only, is usually too optimistic and ignores other constraints implied in a choice.Fitting more comprehensive knowledge into the sustainability evaluation of options requires a unifying systematic framework, which is worked out in the present paper as a ten-step procedure. The integrative framework for empirical analysis is ultimately a comparative-static systems analysis at macro-level, not in a deterministic dynamic mode, which is impossible, but as a knowledge-fed scenario analysis. The analysis shows the change in society's overall eco-efficiency, combining total value creation with total environmental impacts.Possible domains of application include not only technology choices like those in eco-innovation, including changed consumption styles and volumes, but also changes in policies regarding technologies and markets, whether direct policy shifts or indirect changes through institutional adaptations. Ultimately, such a framework also allows culturally framed questions about the type of society we would like to live in, to be analysed in terms of their economic and environmental consequences.     

Understanding the dynamics of technological configurations: A conceptual framework and the case of Smart Homes

This paper explores the innovation dynamics of technological configurations using one particular case study. Technological configurations have been defined in the literature as technical systems with no generic identity, i.e. they are the subset of technical systems for which the pattern of how to arrange the components (architectural knowledge) is defined during implementation. While the implementation of configurations is relatively well understood, knowledge about how configurational technologies evolve as a whole is still underdeveloped. This paper closes this gap and introduces a conceptual framework to understand the dynamics of technological configurations. In particular, the framework introduces the notions of technological field and field learning to add a diachronic and cumulative dimension to the original idea.I apply the framework to the empirical case of Smart Home systems in order to provide a systematic analysis of the underlying innovation dynamics. In particular, I show how the configurational nature of Smart Home systems, and its acknowledgement to various degrees in the corresponding technological field, relates to the emerging innovation dynamics. I conclude with two sets of results. First, I identify a number of conditions on which the future stabilization of the field into cumulative forms of learning depends. Secondly, I draw a range of conclusions with regard to the dynamics of configurational technologies in general.     

基于多变量双对数回归模型的工业发展与环境质量实证研究——以南宁市为例

采用改进的多变量双对数回归模型,判别基于工业规模、工业结构、工业技术三类效应对环境的影响程度,找出工业发展与生态环境变化的内在关联。实证分析结果表明,工业结构对环境影响程度最高,工业规模次之,技术因素影响最小。南宁市在经济发展过程中,应加快工业结构优化升级,通过调整结构、技术进步和加强管理等措施,推进产业结构调整和科技创新,大幅度减少资源消耗,降低废物排放,提高资源生产率,减轻环境压力,优化环境质量。     

Cutting-edge technologies

The past 20 years have witnessed a revolution in high-speed rail technologies. More esoteric technologies such as MAGLEV now seem like technological dead-ends. However, there have been failed projects as well as successes, and the management of technological innovation has played a crucial role. The development of high speed trains illustrates the constraints and direction provided by social, political, economic and managerial factors, and their interplay.     

东北地区高技术产业技术体制研究

本文首先建立技术体制的框架模型,对影响和决定产业技术体制的四个主要因素：市场容量、创新独占性、技术内化性、社会动力进行分析。这些因素影响和决定着产业技术体制的结构和特点,而技术体制的结构和特点将影响到产业的产品结构、技术结构、生产结构、创新结构和竞争结构,进而影响到产业创新能力的提升和核心竞争力的构筑;其次,根据概念模型中对市场容量、创新独占性、技术内化性、社会动力的界定构建技术体制评价指标体系;再次,以电子及通信设备制造业为例,对东北地区高技术产业技术体制的发展规律进行探索,并对存在的问题进行深入分析,力求为东北地区高技术产业技术体制的建设提供理论参考。     

对技术创新推动彩电产业结构调整的思考

彩电市场竞争中洋彩电采用“技术领先”策略占据技术制高点,国产彩电采用“技术适宜”策略占领了市场主体。国产彩电在品牌市场份额竞争的“价格大上呀”中展开库存调整,价格调整,生产调整,技术调整,应深入进行技术战略调整,把“技术适宜”策略调整为“技术创新”战略。通过观念创新,技术创新,管理创新推动彩电产业结的调整,获得彩电市场技术优势,提升国际市场竞争力。     

Disruptive technology roadmaps

Disruptive technologies create growth in the industries they penetrate or create entirely new industries through the introduction of products and services that are dramatically cheaper, better, and more convenient. These disruptive technologies often disrupt workforce participation by allowing technologically unsophisticated individuals to enter and become competitive in the industrial workforce. Disruptive technologies offer a revolutionary change in the conduct of processes or operations.Disruptive technologies can evolve from the confluence of seemingly diverse technologies or can be a result of an entirely new technological investigation. Existing planning processes are notoriously poor in identifying the mix of sometimes highly disparate technologies required to address the multiple performance objectives of a particular niche in the market. For a number of reasons, especially the inability to look beyond short-term profitability, and the risk/return tradeoff of longer term projects, it is suggested that current strategic planning and management processes promote sustaining technologies at the expense of disruptive technologies.We propose a systematic approach to identify disruptive technologies that is realistic and operable and takes advantage of the text mining literature. This literature-based discovery process is especially useful in identifying potential disruptive technologies that may require the input from many diverse technological and management areas. We believe that this process holds great potential for identifying projects with a higher probability of downstream success. Further, we suggest a process to take the identified potential disruptive technology from the “idea stage” through to the development of a potentially feasible product for the market. This second stage makes use of workshops and roadmapping to codify the ideas of technological and management experts, who were identified in the literature-based discovery stage. Our goal is to describe and explain the pragmatic steps suggested by our innovative and practical process.The proposed process could identify technologies whose eventual development and application to specific problems would generate innovative products. The goal is to isolate technologies that have the potential to redefine an industry, or alternatively, have the potential to create an entirely new industrial setting. Use the text-mining component of literature-based discovery to identify both the technical disciplines that are likely candidates for disruptive technological products, and experts in these critical technical and managerial disciplines. While we know that this is but one way to investigate nascent disruptive technologies we feel it is imperative that the representatives of these potentially critical technical disciplines are included in the roadmap development process, either as implementers or as consultants.Every firm is looking for “the next great thing”. Literature-based discovery offers a starting point for identifying at least a portion of the major contributory technical and managerial disciplines necessary for potential disruptive technologies and discontinuous innovations. Combining literature-based discovery with a practical workshop/roadmap process dramatically enhances the likelihood of success.     

西部地区生态效率测度及动态分析 ——基于2000-2010年省际数据

本文尝试以西部地区为研究对象,利用改进的DEA模型,对西部地区2000-2010年的生态效率进行测度,并在此基础上,进一步利用Malmquist指数做动态分析。结果表明,自西部大开发以来,整个西部地区生态效率的均值小于1,未达到最有效的生产前沿,但跨期呈波动上升趋势;省际在效率水平和冗余率两方面存在明显差异;能源的消耗和工业“三废”等污染物的排放是影响非生产前沿面地区生态效率的主要因素;西部地区生态效率提升主要得益于技术进步的贡献,而纯技术效率的贡献不显著,规模效率的贡献为负。     

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.