LUT Business School, Finland

Settling for System Change by Tempering Hype into a Structural Resource

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ABSTRACT

Using a combination of digital and multi-actor ethnographies, we study system transformation from ‘mobility-as-a-good’ to ‘mobility-as-a-service’ in an urban area in Finland. Our four-phase inductive approach elaborates on the hype cycle observed in contexts of (social) innovation to reveal a repeated succession of efforts to augment hype, then abate it. Inspired by the process of tempering, we inductively derive a process model that shows how hype becomes a structural resource in organized system change. Tempering explains why systems often reach above, yet settle below, legislated change. Our process model engages the broader puzzle of systems transitioning from necessary to sufficient change by showing how public and private actors take turns contouring the system to change, then take turns conducting four processes (harmonizing, ripping, mending, and hushing) to change the system from within. We contribute directly to the literature on organized system change in response to urgent grand challenges, and extend ongoing conversations on the limits, obstacles, traps, knots and regressions in social innovation.

BIOGRAPHY

Natalia Lyly is a 4 th year PhD candidate at LUT Business School in Lappeenranta, Finland. Her research interests lie in the intersection of business and policy research, as she seeks to understand sustainability transitions in urban settings. Empirically, she studies mobility systems, or more specifically, how to move away from car-based mobility systems in cities. In her work Natalia approaches sustainability transitions from a social scientific lens, zooming in on the institutional and behavioural sides of sustainability transitions. She explores how institutions are harnessed to mobilize change and achieve sustainability goals and she looks at business-policy interactions and how they influence the pace and direction of change in cities.