Co-Evolution of Standards in Innovation Systems

Abstract

The literature offers at least four threads from which theory and insights might be woven. These are (1) research on technological innovation systems, (2) innovation diffusion studies, (3) studies on dominant design, and (4) studies about energy efficiency in the residential building sector. For each, this chapter reviews only the most relevant studies to understand what each thread can contribute to analyzing the phenomenon of diffusion and co-evolution of building standards. The review has shown that each stream of research is related to the topic addressed here, but also that the streams do not address the phenomenon as I intend to do. Research in technological innovation systems (TIS) focuses on the development of technologies and not on development in standards. Research on innovation diffusion concentrates too narrowly on the level of products, technologies, or services. Studies of dominant design are most often about standards directly competing for market dominance, not about norms that evolve in the mode of symbiotic competition at the edges of their markets. Energy studies about the (Swiss) residential building sector use models which seem to be rich in detail complexity but not in dynamic feedback complexity, leaving out relevant ripple effects when it comes to policy analysis. To conclude, the reviewof the literature revealed that it could not sufficiently explain the co-evolution of building codes in a socio-technical system. That is the gap which the book addresses.