Innovation and institutional change: the transition to a sustainable ...

52 Chapter 2
- specificity: as an expectation becomes more specific it will become more
easy to realise them because it becomes more clear what has to be done
to realise the expectation (e.g. fuel cells can deliver super reliable power
versus fuel cells are the power plants of the future);
- association: expectations become more powerful as they become
associated with solving certain societal problems of which it is expected
that the current technologies can not deal with them.
Vision building is considered another important element in a process of
system change and for the renewal of organisations. As more actors develop
visions regarding the way society should develop, or for a specific subsystem
such as energy, understanding grows regarding the kind of
(fundamental) changes that may be necessary. Vision building can be useful
when there is some sort of consensus between actors that a transition is
required but there is dissent on what kind of transition or on how the
transition may be achieved.
The role of firms
In his dissertation Dieleman (1999) uses theoretical perspectives from
technology studies and institutional economics which view innovation as a
process of searching, learning and adapting to understand why it is so
difficult for firms to change their routines, such as to integrate the approach
of cleaner production in their organisation. The limited success of cleaner
production is explained by the fact that the participation of firms in cleaner
production projects does not necessarily lead to changing routines, whereas,
according to Dieleman, a change in the routines of firms is central to the
whole concept of cleaner production. Dieleman’s focus is then on how these
routines are anchored in the company and embedded in a company’s context.
Change processes necessary for more radical environmental innovations then
need to occur both at the level of firms and their routines, and in the
institutions that reinforce the way companies behave. His main conclusion is
that cleaner production projects have mainly generated what he terms singleloop
learning. This type of learning leads to improvements in production
processes and management but does not fundamentally alter the way the
company functions, or the way it manages its production process. Values,
ways of thinking (beliefs) and routines are thus unchanged, and the ‘art of
pollution prevention’ does not become integrated within the company. In
order to acquire the concept of pollution prevention double loop learning is
required, where underlying values and beliefs are addressed and the current
way of doing things is questioned. Companies need to break through the
established routines, conventions, and standards solutions and ‘defreeze’
established images (Dieleman, 1999: 225). Companies need to be confronted
with the fact that they overlook the potential for prevention and have