Energy sector in transition—technologies and regulatory policies in flux

A transition of the energy sector towards a renewable-based system is one of the challenges that results from the debate on the global climate problems and diminishing fossil fuels. This will demand access to innovations in energy production technologies and usage. However, policies directly focussing on innovation and diffusion of new technologies are losing ground. Policy discussions have been dominated by the liberalisation of energy markets and the introduction of new economic instruments all over Europe. Whether this delegation of responsibility for the transition to new economic instruments provides the expected innovations is questionable.In Europe, Denmark has served as an example country being one of the front runners in the development of energy technologies based on renewable sources, especially wind turbines. But also in Denmark policy preferences have changed from the support for technological innovation and implementation to support for delegating responsibility to a market for green energy and CO₂ certificate trading.The different policy regimes marking this change are analysed concerning their ability to support technological innovation. Important elements for the construction and legitimacy of policy regimes comes from academic disciplines involved in policy design. The analysis highlights the basic arguments and the type of knowledge involved and indicates some of the limitations in the measures' ability to solve the problems delegated to them. Experience thus far provides little if any evidence that simple, market-based models can facilitate the need for future energy technology innovations in a satisfactory way, which leads to a need for more complex and heterogeneous sets of measures.     

Arenas of Development - A Space Populated by Actor-worlds,Artefacts, and Surprises

In this paper the notion 'development arena' is presented and discussed. The notion is suggested to function as a cognitive space for research. It seeks to catch and describe the relational, unstable and heterogeneous character of the development process. It should sensitize both researchers and managers towards processes of technology development that are poorly accounted for in economic and management theory. Thereby, we wish to contribute to critical discussions about the role of management and the directions it chooses for development of technologies and products. The elements and transformations involved in shaping and restructuring activities in a development arena are described and discussed based on a case study of the development of HDTV as the next generation television. It exemplifies different moments and aspects of technology development. A number of configurations of specific processes in a development arena are used to exemplify the strengths of this notion. The notion is compared with other theoretical concepts that have been proposed to explain and model the processes that structure industries, markets, and products.     

Design junctions: Spaces and situations that frame weak signals – the example of hygiene and hospital planning

This article discusses the question: Are weak signals independent of framing and interactions with the environment? The response proposed here is that many of the developments identified by efforts to detect and interpret weak signals are the result of designed interventions that define the repertoire of actions and frames. Very often, as Ansoff argued, actors use a variety of models and filters for seeking and using weak signals. Thus weak signals are not only dependent on the interpretative equipment applied by actors, but from a constructivist perspective the identification of and meaning given to weak signals are strongly influenced by design choices made at the outset. In this sense design is a constitutive element of both the environment and signal detection/use. An example of how design is constitutive of both context and understanding can be found in the history of hospital hygiene. This case study illustrates how dominant regimes of practice, established through the conception of pathogen bacteria and antibacterial treatments and disinfection, are now creating signals that call into question fundamental design of hygiene practices. By examining the epistemic assumptions of scientific disciplines and the designed repertoire of practical responses it becomes clear how contexts and frames of interpretation are constituted and how such contexts and frames then define what is recognised as a weak signal.