Behavioral flexibility is an important adaptive response to changing environments for many animal species. Such plasticity may also promote the invasion of novel habitats by introduced species by ...providing them with the ability to expand or change their ecological niche, a longstanding idea with recent empirical support. At the individual level, flexibility may arise through innovation, in which an individual invents a new behavior, or through social learning, in which an individual adopts a behavior used by others. There is increasing evidence that the adaptive value of these two modes of learning, and the overall expression of behavioral flexibility, may vary with social and environmental context. In this paper, we propose that invasive species may change the degree to which they express behavioral flexibility in an adaptive manner during the different stages of invasion. Specifically, the "adaptive flexibility hypothesis" predicts that the expression of behavioral flexibility, and thus the diversity of behaviors observed in a population, will be high during the initial stage of introduction into a novel environment due to innovation, followed by a decline in behavioral diversity during the establishment and growth of a founding population due to social learning of successful behavioral variants. We discuss several alternatives to this hypothesis and suggest empirical and theoretical tests of these hypotheses. This "adaptive flexibility hypothesis" suggests that a more nuanced approach to the study of the behaviors employed by individuals in populations at different invasion stages could generate new insight into the importance of such flexibility during species invasions, and the evolution of behavioral plasticity in general
During the COVID-19 pandemic, grassroots digital innovations (GDIs) have gained traction as innovation niches, providing an alternative to the prevailing mainstream regime dominating smart city ...transitions. Drawing upon interviews with experts and promoters of GDIs from 12 European countries, we explore the relationships between these initiatives and mainstream regime actors. Five distinct types of niche-regime interactions have emerged from the analysis: inertia, indirect support, antagonism, direct support, and active collaboration. These interactions do not follow a linear and incremental trajectory, but rather represent dynamic configurations that change over time and at different geographic scales. Consequently, our findings contribute to the literature on socio-technical transitions and grassroots innovation by further revealing the multidimensionality and multiscalarity of mainstream regimes. In light of these findings, we urge scholars and practitioners to reconsider how information flows and power imbalances among local and supralocal actors in mainstream regimes influence the development of innovation niches and dictate the pace of socio-technical transitions.
•We apply the MLP theory to explore the interplay between grassroots digital innovations and incumbent actors in smart city transitions.•Our data show that their interactions do not follow a linear, incremental trajectory, but change over time and across geographic scales.•Our findings further reveal the multidimensionality and multiscalarity of mainstream regimes.•We call for further research on the information flows and power imbalances existing between incumbent actors in smart city transitions.
•Pluralised understandings of incumbencies are needed in research on transitions.•Applying an existing power framework to a niche project to identify four patterns in the enabling role of ...incumbents.•Enabling role is influenced by incumbents from multiple regimes, belonging to local authorities, neighbouring and more distant regimes.•The power of structural trends related to the urgency of sustainability challenges also provides clarification.•Generating novel insights on the varieties of incumbencies and the conditions under which these may enable niche projects.
More pluralised understandings of incumbencies are often overlooked in transitions research, which may lead to underestimating the enabling roles of incumbents in niche projects. This study explores these roles by applying a power framework to five struggles revolving around a path-breaking decentralised wastewater treatment project in the city of Ghent (Belgium). Remarkably, incumbents from multiple regimes use power to enable the niche project. The study identifies and discusses four patterns in the enabling role of incumbents in niche projects. These patterns are clarified by focussing on incumbents from multiple regimes, belonging to local authorities, neighbouring and more distant regimes, as well as on the power of structural trends related to the urgency of sustainability challenges. As such, the study contributes to the understanding of multiple incumbencies and the conditions under which these may reinforce niche projects. For practitioners, the study underscores the role of power dynamics in the water/wastewater sector.
•Comparative analysis of decarbonization strategies for aviation & maritime shipping.•Decarbonization via advanced biofuels, electrofuels, hydrogen & electric propulsion.•Incumbents play a role for ...disruption and alternative transition pathways.•Niche innovation is often developed together by incumbents and niche players.•Study analyses the role of regime resistance amongst various actors.
Aviation and maritime shipping are hard-to-abate transport sectors that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. They jointly account for nearly 10 % of global greenhouse gas emissions, while infrastructure and investments are locked into high-carbon pathways for decades. Fuels and technologies to decarbonize include advanced biofuels, electrofuels, hydrogen and electric propulsion. This research aims to analyse the decarbonization strategies for maritime shipping and aviation from a comparative perspective, and analyzing the role of different actors for disruption to break through carbon lock-in and path dependency. The research uses Sweden as a case study and applies qualitative methods, including expert interviews, focus group discussions and site visits. Our research finds that aviation and maritime shipping are slowly changing, albeit with different dynamics. Both sectors show that incumbent regime actors play a major role in shaping transition pathways and disrupting the (quasi)equilibrium, while niche innovation is often developed together by incumbents and niche players.
Facing the intertwined environmental, social and economic crisis requires us to seriously consider alternatives to the current capitalist system, including the emerging concept of degrowth. Existing ...understandings of degrowth have focused on characterizing the shape, the key elements and the proposals for a degrowth society. However, its dynamic and evolving nature as an alternative vision of the future, and the dynamics of a transition toward degrowth are inadequately considered. This paper seeks to address this conceptual gap through a reconceptualisation of degrowth as a radical niche innovation to the capitalist-growth regime. By extending the multi-level perspective framework to the capitalist-growth system, we undertake a critical reconsideration of the multi-level perspective, exposing key assumptions of this framework grounded in capitalist economic theory. Through this, we propose a Pluriversal potential pathway for change. To consider this further, a bibliometric analysis is used to measure and visualize research activity in degrowth as a proxy for the processes of development of the degrowth niche. Then, we return to the multi-level perspective to consider two potential pathways for change involving the degrowth niche and the capitalist-growth regime. Finally, we point to areas for further research that build on this new conceptualisation of a degrowth transition.
•Key assumptions in the multi-level perspective are grounded in capitalist theory.•The multi-level perspective can be usefully extended to the socio-economic system.•Degrowth is conceptualized as a radical niche innovation to the capitalist-growth regime.•Bibliometric analysis serves as a proxy for the development of the degrowth niche.•A Pluriversal pathway offers insights into potential transition pathways for change.
This study explores the impact of financing rules on energy system financing dynamics and the implications for niche innovation and energy transitions. Using an instrumental case study underpinned by ...critical realism, it draws on primary data from financiers and innovators in South Africa to propose a set of financing meta-rules, identify tensions in varying institutional contexts, and suggest multi-dimensional system impacts. The study introduces the concept of financing dynamics to link institutional pillars to financing rules and mechanisms. It also offers a framework of five financing rule domains that present critical institutional contexts which system actors navigate. Findings highlight the exclusionary nature of financing rules, the steering influence of development and philanthropic financing, and the need for further conceptualising innovation in transitions context. Future research could explore and develop the institutional characteristics of financing rule domains, consider reciprocal niche influences, and clarify the underlying power dynamics of financing actors in energy transitions. Moreover, theorising finance as a social system distinct from production and consumption systems may yield new modalities of niche-regime interactions and empowerment for understanding financing phenomena.
•Defines and operationalises financing dynamics for finance research•Proposes five financing rule domains, presenting tensions for energy transitions•Links financing meta-rules to energy system impacts and niche implications•Proposes conceptualising finance distinct from production and consumption systems•Policy insights include social, governance, and conceptual interventions.
The recent advent of electric motorcycles represents an eco-innovation that guarantees environmental sustainability and opens up market opportunities for firms. In this paper, we analyse firms’ entry ...into the motorcycle industry in Italy. The role of incumbent firms in the presence of new innovative niches is ambiguous. On the one hand, incumbents may display inertial behaviours, while on the other hand, they can exploit their experience and dynamic capabilities to promptly catch opportunities and enter the new niche. Based on an original dataset, we develop an empirical investigation of the role of incumbent vs. new firms in the electric motorcycle niche. We contribute to the literature by showing that new firms have so far revealed more vivid dynamics while incumbents seem to stay at the window, thus supporting the idea of the existence of inertia among incumbent firms in this industry. However, among the incumbents that have entered the new market niche, we show that the largest and those with experience in the production of scooters with 0–50 cc engines are the most likely to enter the new niche market.
•The multi-level perspective can explain switch points and transitions through relations of actors and their networks.•An effective network assemblage sets the stage for a switch point and ...transition.•Effective network assemblage can be one explanation for why certain policy instruments seem attractive at any given switch point.•Absence of renewable energy network assemblage like a ‘prosumer’ in Saskatchewan impacts transition to a renewables-based energy system.
This article analyzes the third (1994) and fourth (2015) epochs of Saskatchewan’s energy system and the actors and their networks associated with the transition into a renewable future. A case study method was employed using analyses of the structural, institutional and historical context of power production and energy systems transitions in Saskatchewan. The historic rise of coal is discussed but analysis focuses on the displacement of coal and the era of decarbonization and renewables. Actors, their problemitizations, and narrative processes complement the discussion of transitions away from coal and advancing renewables. The analysis provides policy implications for future coal phase-out including the rise of renewable cooperatives and prosumers.
The development of more resilient and sustainable food systems depends on the integration of ecological and sustainability concepts into agricultural systems. One proposed way to achieve this is to ...shift to 'agroecology'. This concept appears promising, but there is a need to translate it in specific socio-ecological contexts, given that agroecological innovations develop locally and are responsive to local conditions. The objective of this paper is to examine the relevance of an Agroecological Transition for the Special Region of Yogyakarta (SRY), Indonesia, with an emphasis on farmers' perspectives and experiences. Data were gathered from policy documents, field observations and 34 semi-structured interviews with farmers. Findings indicate that although there is limited discourse about agroecology in current policies, some farmers and NGOs have developed agroecological niche innovations. It may be possible to up-scale these niches to a broader context, with planning policies having a potential role in supporting this transition. Furthermore, farmers identify that the planning system can contribute to food sovereignty and Agroecological Transition by preserving agricultural land, managing regional cropping patterns and supporting the development of urban agriculture. These insights broaden existing knowledge around the potential of sustainable food planning through agroecology.
The multi-level perspective (MLP) theorises technological change as a process of niche innovations competing with incumbent socio-technical regimes. As a mid-range theoretical framework, the MLP ...invites complementary, more detailed theorisation of salient issues, especially the roles of socio-political agency in changing regime rules around technological competition. Taking a socio-cognitive perspective, this paper links the MLP with social representations theory, to show how a new technology is diversely ‘anchored’ in a familiar one for different agendas. The case study is a specific niche innovation – thermal treatments of municipal solid waste (MSW) within the UK's wider regime of energy-from-waste (EfW). Through landscape-level changes, controversy over incinerators has destabilised the EfW regime's rules. This instability has opened up opportunities for gasifiers as a niche innovation, yet gasifiers have also become an extra focus for conflict over incinerators' wider role in the waste hierarchy. Agents compare thermal-treatment options for MSW according to various criteria which have unstable, changing rules. These express different socio-cognitive frameworks, analysed here as diverse social representations of novelty. The case study offers an insiders' perspective on endogenous enactment, i.e. the conflicting roles of socio-political agency in shaping transition pathways.
•The multi-level perspective (MLP) leaves some issues ambiguous, e.g. socio-political agency, changes in cognitive rules.•Those issues are explored here for a specific niche innovation – thermal treatments of municipal solid waste (MSW).•Through landscape-level changes, controversy over incinerators destabilised the EfW regime’s rules.•This instability opened up opportunities for gasifiers as a niche innovation, yet they have become an extra focus for wider conflict.•Thermal-treatment options have been compared according to various socio-cognitive frameworks.
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