What drives technology transitions? An integration of different approaches within transition studies

This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of transition drivers by reviewing four major strands of inquiry in transition studies: Multi Level Perspective (MLP); Strategic Niche Management (SNM); Transition Management (TM); Technological Innovation Systems (TIS). To the best of our knowledge, none of these contributions have so far provided a clear-cut classification of main drivers of transitions, as evidenced by the difficulty of practitioners in reaching goals as entrepreneurs, or policy makers in supporting economic growth. We believe that these theoretical streams share views relating the origin and drivers of transitions and that the analysis of the multi-level developments and systemic sub-processes by using the Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA) allows for a more comprehensive identification of transition drivers. By mapping causal relationships within each perspective and by developing an integrative framework that takes in due account of overlaps between theories, we derived a new conceptual structure for the identification of transitions’ drivers.     

Spurious principal components

The principal component regression (PCR) is often used to forecast macroeconomic variables when there are many predictors. In this letter, we argue that it makes sense to pre-whiten the predictors before including these in a PCR. With simulation experiments, we show that without such pre-whitening, spurious principal components can appear and that these can become spuriously significant in a PCR. With an illustration to annual inflation rates for five African countries, we show that non-spurious principal components can be genuinely relevant in empirical forecasting models.     

Environmental Policy Instruments: Technology Adoption Incentives with Imperfect Compliance

We study the incentives to adopt advanced abatement technologies in the presence of imperfect compliance. Interestingly, incentives under emission taxes and pollution abatement subsidies are the same that in the perfect compliance scenario. However, under emission standards imperfect compliance can increase firms’ incentives to invest, whereas under an emission permit mechanism investment incentives decrease only if widespread non-compliance induces a reduction in the permit price. Our results are valid for fairly general characteristics of the monitoring and enforcement strategies commonly found in both, theoretical and empirical applications.     

The raw material basis of global value chains: allocating environmental responsibility based on value generation

A new approach to allocate environmental responsibility, the ‘value added-based responsibility’ allocation, is presented in this article. This metric allocates total environmental pressures occurring along an international supply chain to the participating sectors and countries according to the share of value added they generate within that specific supply chain. We show that – due to their position in global value chains – certain sectors (e.g. services) and countries (e.g. Germany) receive significantly greater responsibility compared to other allocation approaches. This adds a new perspective to the discussions concerning a fair distribution of mitigation costs among nations, companies and consumers.     

Authentication as Institutional Maintenance Work

Institutional maintenance work refers to actors’ deliberate effort to maintain an institution. This paper examines how actors use authentication, i.e., the relational constitution of an artefact as original or as a genuine expression of a particular type, style or person, to accomplish institutional maintenance work. We investigated contemporary adjustments to six listed buildings. These works were undertaken to keep these buildings functional while at the same time protecting their listing; by doing so they contributed to maintain the institution of Architectural Heritage. Our analysis identifies three forms of authentication: material consolidation, crafts mobilization and character enhancement. We elaborate on each of them and explain their institutional underpinnings and outcomes. The paper concludes with an articulation of authentication as a potent form of institutional maintenance work. Taking its starting point in materiality, authentication is a relational practice that helps maintain institutions relying on irreplaceable artefacts for their maintenance.     

Mixed methods studies in entrepreneurship research: Applications and contributions

Mixed methods research is becoming an increasingly popular approach in several fields. However, its application in the field of entrepreneurship has not been studied. The authors reviewed the use of mixed methods research in three entrepreneurship journals and two leading generalistic journals that publish entrepreneurship research, examining the main purposes and designs. A total of 955 articles were reviewed and 81 mixed methods studies were identified. The analysis of these articles revealed opportunities associated with the application of this approach. Mixed methods may help to improve entrepreneurship research addressing challenges emphasized in earlier studies. Suggestions on why and how to use mixed methods research are offered, and recommendations are provided to guide future mixed methods studies to advance our understanding of the entrepreneurial phenomenon.     

The emergence of the Big Five in Sweden

The accounting profession is dominated by the Big Five, which in 1999 and in order of revenue size were PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Arthur Andersen. A specific feature of the profession in Sweden is that three firms dominate the market –; PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG – while Arthur Andersen and Deloitte & Touche are of less relative importance compared with their standing in other countries. The objective of this paper is to explore the development of the auditing profession in Sweden 1912–99, in order to find the growth strategies that generated today's structure. Particular attention will be paid to the gradual emergence of the Big Five. The Big Three auditing firms in Sweden in 1999 engaged 55% (1,105 authorized public accountants) of the total population of authorized public accountants. However, the proportion of ‘sole practitioners’, i.e. firms with no more than one authorized public accountant, was 81% in the same year. An overwhelming part of the auditing firms in Sweden are thus very small. It seems quite obvious that the activities within these small firms in many important ways differ from the activities within the medium-sized and big firms. A common feature of the firms that subsequently became the Big Three in Sweden is that they were established at a very early stage. There seems to have been a first-mover advantage in the auditing profession. The Big Three firms have adopted different growth strategies. They have increased in size by organic growth, by establishing or buying branch offices in different parts of Sweden or by merging with large firms.     

Skill-biased technological change and homeownership

In the United States, the residential housing market went through important changes over the period from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Although the aggregate homeownership rate was relatively stable during that period, the distribution of homeownership rates by age changed in remarkable ways. While younger households saw substantial declines in homeownership rates, the opposite happened for older households. In this paper, we argue that the skill-biased technological change (SBTC) that began during the 1970s has been an important factor behind the observed change in the distribution of homeownership rates by age. We build a life cycle model in which skills are accumulated on-the-job through experience: learning by doing. Early in life, households have lower levels of skills and therefore lower earnings. SBTC increases the returns to skill, widening the wage gap between young and old ages. As a consequence, it takes more time for young households to become homeowners given frictions in financial markets (e.g. downpayment requirements) and housing markets (e.g. large and indivisible houses), in line with consumption smoothing behavior. On the other hand, older households that could not afford a house before may now become homeowners, given higher returns to skill. Our analysis confirms this conjecture, namely, that SBTC shifts the distribution of homeownership from the young to the old.