Innovation, Futures Thinking and Leadership

There are at least three strands of innovation: generating value from putting ideas into practice; creativity and inventive space; and macro-level social change. Recognizing the sources of and barriers to innovation in the public sector, this article reflects on how innovation and creativity in these senses can be nurtured and how the public sector can improve its policy and organizational processes to increase innovation.     

Transitions: Taking complexity seriously

The aim of this paper is to make the case for a systematic engagement of transition studies with complexity theory and research. We argue that transition research is important for the understanding and development of possible sustainable future pathways. However, there are several controversies in transition research, including, the role of agency in transitions; the relationships between levels (niche, regime and landscapes); the origin of transitions; the identification of a transition, including starting and ending point of transition processes; and the paradox of replicability and scaling up of independent experiments. We argue that transition research, and future studies can benefit from taking complexity theory seriously. In the paper, we elaborate four insights from complexity studies that can move the research agenda of transition studies forward: empirically investigating the degree of complexity of a system; investigating complexity at the level of the policy-making system; longitudinal and retrospective research designs for the identification of transitions; methodological tools which accommodate complexity, such as agent-based modeling and ARIMA modeling. Further, we suggest how these can improve our knowledge of transitions towards sustainable future.     

Accounting and sustainable development: An exploration

As the social and environmental impacts of human activity have become more evident, the role of sustainable development as an organising principle in a variety of policy contexts and over multiple scales has become central. There are, at least, two implications that emerge from this observation. First, morally infused problems that need to be addressed have become more intractable, requiring innovation in our modes of thinking. Second, new spaces have emerged where the academy might explore how knowledge is created, validated and translated (or not) alongside policy and practice settings. One outcome of these trends has been the emergence of a stream of work (sustainability science) which investigates how disciplines might develop knowledge that progresses sustainable development. The aim of this paper, in line with the focus of the special issue, is to explore what possibilities emerge for accounting in light of a sustainability science approach. To achieve this end the paper starts with an exploration of the frustrations expressed in the literature over the perceived lack of progress made by social and environmental accounting towards addressing sustainable development. The paper then introduces sustainability science with the aim of imagining how an accounting for sustainable development might emerge. The paper closes with two illustrations of how a sustainability science approach to accounting could develop.     

Institutional sustainability: ‘community’ and waste management in Zimbabwe

This article addresses sustainability as a social process. In doing so it extends beyond the Brundtland notion of present and ‘future generations’ to grapple with the divergent social worlds in which the term is constructed by different actors. It is thus concerned with how learning can take place within development interventions to enable actors to build new norms and behaviours which cut across social divides. A framework has been developed to (i) explore and make explicit the assumptions held by stakeholders; (ii) develop an awareness of the nature and practices of accountability; (iii) build an understanding of cause and effect (attribution) in relation to action. It is suggested that structured participation in these processes can help to build inter-organizational and inter-associational learning which can provide the basis for new norms and behaviours stretching beyond the formal life of any intervention (institutional sustainability). The article draws on research from Zimbabwe, however it is suggested that the framework can have applicability in many situations.     

Co-design,evaluation and the Northern Ireland Innovation Lab

Around the world there are more than 100 policy labs—multi-disciplinary government teams developing public services and policies using innovation methods to engage citizens and stakeholders. These policy labs use a range of innovation methods and approaches, including co-production, co-creation, co-design, behavioural insights, systems thinking, ethnography, data science, nudge theory and lean processes. Although the methods may vary, one element is consistent: policy labs actively, creatively and collaboratively engage the public and a wide range of stakeholders in jointly developing solutions. The Northern Ireland Public Sector Innovation Lab (iLab) is part of a growing UK and international community of policy labs using co-design to engage with users for value co-creation, aiming to improve public governance by creating a safe space to generate ideas, test prototypes and refine concepts with beneficiaries. Drawing on iLab’s experience, this paper explores three questions: What are the main determinants of effective co-design? What are the unintended consequences of co-design? And what lessons can be learned from iLab and shared with other policy labs?     

Governing the transition to low-carbon futures: A critical survey of energy scenarios for 2050

There is a growing scientific consensus that limiting the increase in global average temperature to around 2 °C above pre-industrial levels is necessary to avoid unacceptable impact on the climate system. This requires that the developed countries’ emissions are radically reduced during the next 40 years. Energy scenario studies provide insights on the societal transitions that might be implied by such low-carbon futures, and in this paper we discuss how a greater attention to different governance and institutional issues can complement future scenario exercises. The analysis is based on a critical review of 20 quantitative and qualitative scenario studies, all of relevance for meeting long-term climate policy objectives. The paper: (a) analyzes some key differences in energy technology mixes and primary energy use patterns across these studies; (b) briefly explores the extent and the nature of the societal challenges and policy responses implied; and (c) discusses a number of important implications for the design and scope of future scenario studies. Our review shows that in previous scenario studies the main attention is typically paid to analyzing the impact of well-defined and uniform policy instruments, while fewer studies factor in the role of institutional change in achieving different energy futures. We therefore point towards a number of strategies of integrating issues of transition governance into future scenario analyses, and argue for a closer synthesis of qualitative and quantitative scenario building.     

Political-economy of pension plans: Impact of institutions,gender, and culture

National pension systems are an important part of financial intermediation and worker welfare in most countries, but how and why do they differ internationally? Controlling for important political, economic and social institutions, we document that international differences in pension progressivity, or how pensions reflect lifetime earnings, are negatively related to masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, long-term orientation, employment rights, average pension levels, social trust and economic inequality. We also find that pension progressivity is positively related to the economic and societal role of women, the extent of Catholicism; as well as political voice and accountability. These results provide important insights for both public policy and MNC managers.     

Is accounting for sustainability actually accounting for sustainability…and how would we know? An exploration of narratives of organisations and the planet

The emergence of sustainable development as the complex notion through which social and environmental issues must be addressed – whether at policy, personal or organisational levels – has had a growing influence in the accounting literature. In addition to explorations of what sustainability may mean for accounting and finance, we have experienced a growth in both critiques of sustainability reporting (sic) and in experiments and speculations on how accounting for sustainability might advance. This growth – as with social and environmental accounting before it – has very properly attracted critique. One convergent theme in that critique has been a challenge that much of the realist and procedural baggage associated with conventional accounting is no longer apposite when seeking to account for sustainability. What may be required, is a more nuanced understanding of what ‘sustainability’ actually is and how, if at all, it can have any empirical meaning at the level of the organisation. This essay seeks to initiate an auto-critique of accounting for sustainability via an examination of meanings and contradictions in sustainable development which, in turn, leads towards a suggestion for the development of multiple and conditional narratives that whilst no longer realist or totalising, explicitly challenge the hegemonic claims of business movements in the arena of sustainability and sustainable development.     

The missing link? Finance,public services,and co-production: The case of social impact bonds (SIBs)

The authors explain why social impact bonds (SIBs) are an excellent—and probably the only—example of the finance–social services–co-production link. They show how SIBs can provide a functional linking mechanism in social service systems. Furthermore, they can help boost the innovation and sustainability of this system. The co-production concept is related to practice by studying two prison SIBs (HMP Peterborough in the UK and Rikers Island in the USA). They explain why co-production is relevant and how it works in SIBs.     

Transformative change towards sustainability: the interaction between organisational discourses and organisational practices

This paper adopts a case study approach to explore the complex process of organisational change towards greater social and environmental sustainability. The case study of a major global financial services organisation involved interviews and examination of company documents, and their website over the period 2000–2014. The rare longitudinal empirical evidence from different sources provides important insights to how companies are responding to increasing demands for sustainable development. Using Laughlin’s [1991. Environmental disturbances and organizational transitions and transformations: some alternative models. Organization Studies, 12 (2), 209–232] pathways of change model, the study investigates the interaction between organisational discourses (i.e. its interpretive schemes) and organisational practices (i.e. design archetypes). The findings demonstrate the centrality of organisational discourses, especially those relating to accounting calculative practices, to radical change towards sustainable development. The paper also contributes to the literature on institutional logics, particularly multiple institutional logics, and how these are implicated in change processes.     

The missing link: Bringing institutions and politics into energy future studies

Energy future studies can be a useful tool for learning about how to induce and manage technical, economic and policy change related to energy supply and use. The private sector has successfully deployed them for strategic planning, examining key parameters such as markets, competition and consumer trends. However in public policy, most energy future studies remain disconnected from policy making. One reason is that they often ignore the key political and institutional factors that underpin much of the anticipated, wished-for or otherwise explored energy systems developments. Still, we know that institutions and politics are critical enablers or constraints to technical and policy change. This paper examines how analytical insights into political and institutional dynamics can enhance energy future studies. It develops an approach that combines systems-technical change scenarios with political and institutional analysis. Using the example of a backcasting study dealing with the long term low-carbon transformation of a national energy system, it applies two levels of institutional and political analysis; at the level of international regimes and at the level of sectoral policy, and examines how future systems changes and policy paths are conditioned by institutional change processes. It finds that the systematic application of these variables significantly enhances and renders more useful backcasting studies of energy futures.     

Methods and tools contributing to FTA: A knowledge-based perspective

Future oriented technology analysis (FTA) applied to innovation policy and practice often goes well beyond the narrow domain of technology forecasting. It is oriented to supporting the functioning and development of innovation systems, and involves mutual learning processes, involving stakeholders and experts of many kinds. Such FTA calls for crossing the boundaries of disciplines, research traditions, and professional activities FTA then necessarily involves knowledge management (whether this be formal or implicit); and this knowledge management has to confront the challenges created by FTA's call for engagement across different - and across potentially competing - corporate, sectoral, and public interests. This paper explores the consequences of this view of FTA and how the roles of various FTA methods and tools are seen in terms of knowledge management. It goes on to discuss the implications that follow for FTA design, and the methodological challenges, and requirements for development of tools, techniques and principles, for FTA. The challenges of participatory knowledge management are seen to be particularly important ones to tackle.     

Social structures that promote change in a complex world: The complementary roles of strangers and acquaintances in innovation

In this paper we offer insights about the type of societies that are more likely to generate and promote innovation. In particular, we present results from a study of innovation through computational social simulations to focus on a structural aspect of societies: their degree of separation and how this social characteristic may be related to what, how and why new ideas and solutions can replace existing wide-spread practices in a society. We focus on the work of design practitioners and sustainable design as an example to illustrate these insights.     

新形势下增强大学生科技创新能力的途径

优良的学风是保证和提高教育质量的重要条件,是学生成长成才和高校可持续发展的必要保证。而科技创新是关系到一个国家经济和社会发展的重要基石。大学生科技创新活动是培养大学生创新意识,提高创新能力的有效载体。本文通过对当前大学生科技创新活动现状的分析,提出了提高科技创新活动的途径,探讨如何以科技创新为抓手,从根本上促进学风的建设。     

Do ESG ratings promote corporate green innovation? A quasi-natural experiment based on SynTao Green Finance's ESG ratings

Corporate efforts in green technology improvements are critical for enhancing sustainability; consequently, how to promote green innovation has attracted scholarly attention. This study explores whether and how environment, social, and governance (ESG) ratings influence corporate green innovation by using an independent third-party rating agency's (SynTao Green Finance) ESG ratings in China as a quasi-natural experiment. We find companies covered by the ESG rating agency significantly increase green innovation output by 3.9%, mainly as an increase in green invention patents. ESG ratings' positive effects on green innovation are more pronounced for firms whose investors are less short-sighted, non-state-owned enterprises and firms with higher degree of financial constraints. Additionally, we find ESG ratings' impact can also increase the green innovation quality and synergetic green innovation. Thus, ESG ratings from third-party institutions can effectively increase corporate green innovation, which has important implications for companies to achieve green transformation and for emerging markets to improve ESG rating systems.     

Governmentality in accounting and accountability: A case study of embedding sustainability in a supply chain

This paper examines how the introduction of sustainability accounting has been used by an organization as a means to seek to govern social, economic and environmental issues relating to suppliers. The concept of governmentality and four analytics of government are proposed as a means to examine systematic ways of exercising power and authority. This theoretical framework illuminates the specific rationales and practices of government that enable particular aspirations of reform – such as sustainability – to be constituted. The analysis is informed by the discussion of the implementation of sustainability-orientated regimes of practice in the context of a single supply chain within a major supermarket chain in the UK against the theoretical analytics of government. The paper provides novel empirical insights into how sustainability accounting shaped forms of power, rationales and practices in a supply chain. It explores the extent to which senior decision-takers frame and use sustainability accounting to foster disciplinary effects based ostensibly upon social and environmental goals. These are found in practice to be reformulated primarily according to an economic (rather than social or environmental) regime of practice.     

Scenarios based on sustainability discourses: Constructing alternative consumption and consumer perspectives

This paper describes a research based scenario project on sustainable consumption in Belgium. In the Consentsus project a scenario method was developed and tested by the research team to assess scenarios both as learning and participation tools for sustainable consumption. By using a decomposition analysis a solid ground was laid to adequately summarize three guiding principles on how to reach a (more) sustainable consumption: eco-efficiency, de-commodification and sufficiency. These ‘pure’ strategies – showing significant similarities with concrete discourses – were then translated into a participative process: two expert-driven workshops and interim research yielded three future images of food consumption as well as indications on their boundary conditions. These three images reflect significantly diverging approaches on how to organize practices related to food consumption. This structural diversity allowed us to address an archetypical consumer, i.e. a generalized consumer based on the specificities of the scenarios. These consumer perspectives do not aim at indicating real (even potential) groups, but aim at illustrating how the environment of interactions around the consumer fundamentally changes throughout the three sustainability discourses. It is argued that thinking through alternative modes of consumption is of importance to support and elucidate debate in governance arenas that address transitions towards a more sustainable consumption.     

关于解决小微企业融资难问题和发展融资担保体系的思考

小微企业是社会经济的生力军,在稳定增长、扩大就业、促进创新、繁荣市场方面发挥着极为重要的作用,做好小微企业金融服务,促进小微企业健康发展,事关经济社会发展全局,具有十分重要的战略意义。目前,从各方面反映的情况看,融资难、融资贵问题依然是困扰和制约其生存和发展的主要因素之一,尽管各级政府高度重视这一问题,并出台了一些扶助性的政策措施,缓解了部分企业的发展和生存压力,但这一问题仍未有根本性好转。本文通过企业调研,与融资性担保机构座谈,借鉴一些省市好的作法,对解决这一问题提出一些新的思考。     

Governance and Accountability: A Role for Social Accounts in the Sustainable School

Alongside formal systems of governance in secondary education there are important informal relationships of accountability among key stakeholders, organized around voluntary obligation in the public interest. Developing these accountabilities enhances sustainability. This article argues that social accounting, when firmly rooted in the values of the school community, can be a valuable tool in developing accountability and a practical means of enhancing sustainability.