The "talking" and the "doing": Discourse and innovation strategies in the automotive industry

Björn Budde, Karl Matthias Weber (Vortragende:r)

Publikation: Beitrag in Buch oder TagungsbandVortrag mit Beitrag in TagungsbandBegutachtung

Abstract

The issue of climate change raises new requirements for the way our societies work, and in particular how energy is provided. The reductions necessary to reach the internationally agreed targets to limit the rise in temperature are enormous and require technological and social innovations and several levels. In order to cope with this challenge the incremental improvement of existing technologies will be necessary but probably not sufficient. Therefore radical innovations are required, to meet the greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reductions considered to be necessary to keep the effects of climate change manageable (UNFCCC 2009; Stern 2006). Due to these requirements and the increasing share of the total GHG emission caused by automotive transport, the automotive industry is expected by the public and thus by policy makers to develop sustainable alternative drive train systems. However, a number of experts argue that the automotive industry is probably "window-dressing", by conducting innovation activities only at the necessary level to satisfy public concerns raised (van den Hoed 2005). Furthermore we have seen in the past the emergence of several hype/disappointment cycles concerning alternative drive train technologies caused by a gap between the expectations and announcements of the automotive industry. Eventually the industry was not able to deliver the promised technologies to the market within the proposed timeframe (Konrad et al. in preparation; van Lente and Spitters 2009). In this paper we will make a distinction between the innovation strategy and the discourse strategy of the actors. We will analyze to which extent an opening gap between the discourse (or public relation) activities and the actual innovation activities can be observed. In order to deal with the methodological challenge related to this paper we will draw on a mix of methods (Leonard-Barton 1990): First, a discourse analysis to analyze the discourse strategies, second a patent analysis indicating the actual innovation strategy and third around 30 semi-structured interviews with several actors still involved and retired to supplement the information gathered . First results indicate that there is a gap observable between the discourse and the innovation strategy, eventually contributing to the emergence of hype/disappointment cycles. Furthermore important methodological issues based on our findings for studies related to sustainable innovation journeys (see Geels et al. 2008 for an overview) will be discussed in the paper.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
Titelhttp://www.ist2011.nu/html/session_a.html#a1
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 2011
Veranstaltung2nd International Conference on Sustainability Transitions. Diversity, plurality and change: breaking new grounds in sustainability transition research -
Dauer: 13 Juni 201115 Juni 2011

Konferenz

Konferenz2nd International Conference on Sustainability Transitions. Diversity, plurality and change: breaking new grounds in sustainability transition research
Zeitraum13/06/1115/06/11

Research Field

  • Ehemaliges Research Field - Innovation Systems and Policy

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