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

70 Chapter 3
invested (Hughes, 1983). Apart from these tangible aspects the focus is on
intangible aspects, such as the mental models or belief systems to which the
regime is associated.
Second, transition processes involve sequences of changes with the essence of
the change being the formation of (qualitatively) new couplings that may
exploit various developments at landscape, regimes and niches, where an initial
change in one dimension triggers wider change as actors react and adapt their
decisions and strategies in a significant way. It involves not only diffusion but
also qualitative changes. An obvious example is policy change such as the
initiation of a new policy approach that may trigger reactions within business,
civil society and so forth. Examples are the zero-emission scheme for cars that
was started in California, and led to significant changes in strategies of major
car producers, and to reorientation of R&D directions for public and private
organisations. Maybe this change process was limited because this was not
followed by similar programs in other regions and because the major car
producers also started a line of defence to reduce the radical nature and impact
of the policy program. In the case of transitions the sequence of change lead to
a process of chain reactions where waves of change tend to spread more and
more and become pervasive throughout society. Often this then involves
parallel processes of change that together provide strong momentum for
change. An example is the introduction of the computer and the way it has
transformed the processes of information provision and transport, and changed
behaviour of people and businesses regarding work, trade, leisure,
communication, etc. But this is also affecting more traditional regimes such as
electricity and transportation and may provide gradients for transitional
processes there.
This implies two lines of focus for our research. First there is a need to indicate
which type of changes or events are plausible to trigger the sequences of
change just mentioned. Where may they start and how do they offset these
waves of changes which will resonate strong and long enough to trigger
significant processes of transitions? What kind of parallel changes may tip the
change process towards accelerating?
Second, it implies some indication regarding the reactions that certain events,
actions or changes may provoke, and the second and third waves of reactions to
the earlier ones. Such a ‘model of change’ may lead to the surprising and
unexpected outcomes that are often typical of transitions and deviates from
models that are based on extrapolations or on first reactions to certain changes,
such as new policy approaches that are initiated. A straightforward example of
a sequential pattern of change is the so-called domino-effect where an initial
move of one business or government to invest significantly in a particular kind
of technology or to launch a prototype of a particular product is followed by