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

Analytical framework 69
existing form. It involves learning regarding the technology and its matching
organisational form, changing interactions and linkages, the build up of new
competencies, and the build up of legitimacy and trust regarding the
functioning of the new alternative and its proponents. Thus the success of
alternatives therefore also depends on processes of institutionalisation.
Such a process of institutionalisation of an alternative can only be successful
if it is accompanied by a process of re-institutionalisation of existing
dominant technological and organisational forms. De-institutionalisation
refers to erosion of an institutionalised activity or practice (Oliver, 1991:
563). Re-institutionalisation refers to adaptation of existing ways of doing,
organising, and coordinating to allow an alternative form to emerge and
expand. Rules, both formal and informal, need to be re-considered, renegotiated,
and changed in order for the alternative to take root. The focus of
the empirical chapters is on tracing these patterns of institutionalisation and
re-institutionalisation and the forces that influence these patterns in order to
be able to explain the evolution of alternative electricity paths.
3.3 A multi-level perspective on systems change
A further inspiration for the analysis in the empirical chapters is the work of
the scholars on transition theory (Kemp, 1994; Kemp et al, 2001; Verbong,
2001; Geels, 2002ab; Elzen, Geels and Hofman, 2002, 2004; Geels, 2004;
Raven, 2005). Based on their work and own involvement in projects where
these ideas were applied (Hofman and Marquart, 2001; Hofman, Elzen and
Geels, 2004), we start from the following notions.
First, transitions always involve changes at multiple levels and interactions
between multiple levels. Processes of change will only acquire a transitional
nature as they take direction and gain momentum through interlinkages
between landscape developments, regime changes and niche emergence. We
aim to illustrate to build scenarios originating from a potential selection
factors, variations, and couplings. We aim to indicate aspects of uncertainty
and the degree of robustness of certain changes, starting from the
presumption that change processes are likely to occur when a number of
conditional factors come together (the idea of tipping points 3 ). Important in
these processes of change is that they represent change of the direction and
velocity of the system, which is difficult since the system has a lot of mass,
machines, infrastructures, etc. in which considerable capital has been
3 A popular account of the idea of tipping points is provided by Gladwell’s (2000) book. See
also Urry (2004) for an application to car-based transport.