Patterns of expectations for emerging sustainable technologies

By F. Alkemade, Roald A. A. Suurs. 2012

162 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Innovation is characterized by uncertainties, high risks, large investments and late returns on investment which make it a complex process. This is particularly true for sustainable innovation where market forces alone cannot be relied upon to realize the desired transitions. Insight in the dynamics of such innovation processes is necessary in order to influence technological change toward a more sustainable direction. However, few instruments and indicators are available to assess the performance of emerging technological innovation systems. In this phase competition often takes place based on expectations rather than on technological performance. This paper therefore focuses on the expectation patterns of technological innovation systems in the exploratory phase through the analysis of the expectation dynamics of three emerging technologies in the field of sustainable mobility within the Netherlands: biofuels, hydrogen as a transport fuel and natural gas as a transport fuel. These technologies do not only compete with the current fossil-fuel based system but also with each other. We have collected over 5000 expectation events regarding these technologies for the period 2000–2008 and discuss the insights generated by the comparison of the observed expectation dynamics to theoretical patterns.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management Science and Operations Research, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/796c7ae2ae7dc88e9c77744a20796bd31511dda1

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Felix Creutzig
2. W. Lamb
3. J. Minx
4. Pete Smith
5. Sabine Fuss
6. M. Callaghan
7. Jérôme Hilaire
8. Jens Hartmann

In Management Science and Operations Research

1. Felix Creutzig
2. Pete Smith
3. J. Minx
4. Jérôme Hilaire
5. M. Callaghan
6. S. Rogers
7. Sabine Fuss
8. Jens Hartmann

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. Felix Creutzig
2. Gregory F. Nemet
3. Pete Smith
4. Ozgur Dedehayir
5. Sabine Fuss
6. Martin Steinert
7. W. Lamb
8. J. Minx

Citations in the corpus

• The hype cycle model: A review and future directions (2016, methodology): “Andersen, 1999) across time. Commensurate with our proposition, Grupp and Schmoch (1992) have observed such hypes in patent activities concerning laser beam sources and polyimides, and Grupp (1998) has found a similar pattern for solar cells. The authors have shown that patent application numbers ha”
• Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling (2018, background): “Other insights from the innovation literature include the importance of expectations (Alkemade and Suurs 2012).”
• Demand pull and technology push perspective in technology-based innovations for the points of sale: the retailers evaluation (2014, background): “…risks, huge monetary investments and late returns on investment involved in the innovation process, with consequences for technology failure (Evans, 2011; Alkemade and Suurs, 2012; Pantano et al., 2013), which could discourage retailers to afford the technology-based innovations adoption process.”
• Educational quality thresholds in the diffusion of knowledge with mobile phones for inclusive human development in sub-Saharan Africa (2018, unknown): “ICT has been established to contribute to inclusive and sustainable development (Alkemade and Surrs, 2012).”