Radical sustainability from Global South

This is a draft entry. The final version will be available in Elgar Encyclopedia of Innovation Management edited by Eriksson, P., Montonen, T., Laine, P-M, & Hannula, A., forthcoming in 2025, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035306459Innovations and technologies are set to play a key role in sustainability transformations. That is, a radical transformation to a more socially and ecologically sustainable society. Yet, perspectives on sustainability transformations and how to reach them vary greatly. Mainstream Western approaches prioritise green growth and technological innovations for decarbonisation and biodiversity conservation. However, alternative understandings of innovation and technology are gaining ground, particularly in response to the question of whether economic growth can be decoupled from CO2 emissions and material consumption. This entry explores alternative perspectives on innovations, highlighting concurrent streams of sustainable innovations emerging from post-development and post-growth movements in the Global South, which challenge the dominant Western models of sustainability and sustainable development that is heavily reliant on technological optimism and innovations for profit. In fact, alternative understanding on technologies and innovations are based on principles of conviviality, pluriverse and grassroots to create a more sustainable and inclusive society and approach innovations from more-than-technology perspectives

Radical sustainability from Global South

Innovations and technologies are set to play a key role in sustainability transformations. That is, a radical transformation to a more socially and ecologically sustainable society. Yet, perspectives on sustainability transformations and how to reach them vary greatly. Mainstream Western approaches prioritise green growth and technological innovations for decarbonisation and biodiversity conservation. However, alternative understandings of innovation and technology are gaining ground, particularly in response to the question of whether economic growth can be decoupled from CO2 emissions and material consumption. This entry explores alternative perspectives on innovations, highlighting concurrent streams of sustainable innovations emerging from post-development and post-growth movements in the Global South, which challenge the dominant Western models of sustainability and sustainable development that is heavily reliant on technological optimism and innovations for profit. In fact, alternative understanding on technologies and innovations are based on principles of conviviality, pluriverse and grassroots to create a more sustainable and inclusive society and approach innovations from more-than-technology perspectives

Inclusiveness in research and innovation settings

This is a draft entry. The final version will be available in Elgar Encyclopedia of Innovation Management edited by Eriksson, P., Montonen, T., Laine, P-M, & Hannula, A., forthcoming in 2025, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035306459This entry highlights the critical transition from a quantitative pursuit of gender equality to a focus on qualitative inclusion within the research and innovation (R&I) domains. Acknowledging that according to Unesco, women occupy merely one-third of research positions globally, this entry emphasises the significance of diversifying research and innovation to mitigate societal inequalities and biases in technologies, particularly those stemming from a predominantly masculine research culture. It underscores the necessity of addressing structural and cultural barriers in the field of Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) to create a more inclusive and diverse working culture, ensuring that women and other minorities are retained and empowered within R&I

The digitalisation of the Nordic bioeconomy and its effect on gender equality

With digitalisation, the male-dominated bioeconomy sector becomes intertwined with the male-dominated tech sector. We focus on the effects on gender equality within the bioeconomy sector when these two gender unequal sectors are merged. We review the existing literature by studying three concepts - bioeconomy, digitalisation and gender - as a way to highlight the current state of knowledge on gender in the Nordic digitalised bioeconomy. Through this investigation we provide directions for future research and suggest actions to be taken. The contemporary literature discusses two major areas of focus: the impact of history on today's situation and gender inequality as a women's issue. We propose four areas of future research focus: moving beyond a historical perspective, understanding the effectiveness of women-only activities, focusing on men's role in gender equality work, and developing sustainability. We identify four points of action for practitioners in the literature: female role models, mentorship programmes, networks for young professionals and students and incorporating gender into bioeconomy-related education. However, together with the proposed future research, we suggest two considerations when practitioners in the Nordic digitalised bioeconomy take action: being mindful of the purpose and structure of women-only activities and including men when working with gender issues

Restricting access to asylum through restricting legal aid? An infrastructural analysis of the role of legal aid in asylum processes in Finland

International immigration is one of the most debated issues in the 21st century. As states are creating increasingly restrictive migration policies, the human rights of migrants and refugees are in flux. This thesis presents a case study on the Finnish immigration management reform that was passed after the relatively large influx of asylum seekers in 2015-2016. As part of the reform, access to legal aid in asylum procedures was restricted. Following the understanding of asylum process as an extension of a complex bordering regime, this thesis intends to understand the role of legal aid through an infrastructural analysis. The theory of migration infrastructure suggests that any study on migration should aim to understand how actors and policies facilitate, mediate and restrict migration trajectories. Through four thematic expert interviews, this thesis finds that legal aid can be seen to have a preparative, conciliatory and supportive role in asylum processes. Access to diligent and experienced legal aid can thus facilitate the success of an asylum process. Yet, the inability to access legal aid has had severe implications for the rights of asylum seekers. As the asylum process has become much more complicated, some asylum seekers face an increased risk of experiencing various forms of violence, for example through breaching of the principle of non-refoulement or by rendering the asylum seeker to an irregular status when return to home country is not possible. With these developments, the restrictions concerning legal aid can be seen to have influenced the likelihood to gain asylum in Finland

Restricting access to asylum through restricting legal aid? An infrastructural analysis of the role of legal aid in asylum processes in Finland

International immigration is one of the most debated issues in the 21st century. As states are creating increasingly restrictive migration policies, the human rights of migrants and refugees are in flux. This thesis presents a case study on the Finnish immigration management reform that was passed after the relatively large influx of asylum seekers in 2015-2016. As part of the reform, access to legal aid in asylum procedures was restricted. Following the understanding of asylum process as an extension of a complex bordering regime, this thesis intends to understand the role of legal aid through an infrastructural analysis. The theory of migration infrastructure suggests that any study on migration should aim to understand how actors and policies facilitate, mediate and restrict migration trajectories. Through four thematic expert interviews, this thesis finds that legal aid can be seen to have a preparative, conciliatory and supportive role in asylum processes. Access to diligent and experienced legal aid can thus facilitate the success of an asylum process. Yet, the inability to access legal aid has had severe implications for the rights of asylum seekers. As the asylum process has become much more complicated, some asylum seekers face an increased risk of experiencing various forms of violence, for example through breaching of the principle of non-refoulement or by rendering the asylum seeker to an irregular status when return to home country is not possible. With these developments, the restrictions concerning legal aid can be seen to have influenced the likelihood to gain asylum in Finland

Enabling Transformative Change: Investigating Capabilities for Sustainability in City Management

Public organizations are increasingly struggling with sustainability challenges for various reasons. First, being complex and cross-cutting by nature (Dunlop and Russel 2012), sustainability extends to structures and processes in different levels and branches of organizations making it an issue of governance and management (Dinica 2018). While the pivotal role of public sector in promoting sustainability has been highlighted in previous literature (e.g., Jordan and Lenschow, 2009; Leuenberger and Bartle 2014; Fiorino 2010; Dunlop and Russel 2012), there is a lack of understanding and focus especially on the strategically critical role of local government in the field of sustainable development (e.g., Hoornweg et al. 2011; Krause, Feiock, and Hawkins 2016; Castán Broto, Trencher, Iwaszuk & Westman 2019). Secondly, promoting sustainability has been difficult for the dual role of cities in solving and contributing to sustainability challenges. This means that cities constitute both problems and solutions to sustainability challenges (Grimm et al. 2008). Cities are local scenes where the global ecological crises, e.g., forest fires, drought and pollution concretize, but they are also sites where innovative activity to mitigation and adaptation happens. For example, as Grimm et al. (2008) put it, the local nature of biodiversity loss and climate crisis make cities represent microcosms of global changes, making them interesting cases for understanding the dynamics of sustainability and responses to change. However, there is scarce understanding about how to promote these new aims in public management. Our study contributes by identifying a set of capabilities that enable a city to promote transformative change toward sustainability. Our findings are based on an investigation of an extensive development project, where the top management of the second biggest city in Finland, Espoo, developed a vision of a new management approach for comprehensive sustainability. Our empirical material includes workshop and individual interview data gathered during fall 2020 and spring 2021 during the impact-driven governance project. Participants in the workshops and interviews were the city mayor and other senior members from strategy, governance, data management and service development units. In total 151 pages of transcribed text was analysed. We analysed the text following the Gioia method (Gioia, et al., 2012). The Gioia method, especially used in management and organizational studies, is used to study people’s interpretations of event. Our findings suggest that promoting transformative change requires dynamic capabilities (Kattel & Mazzucato, 2018; Teece et al., 1997; Piening, 2013), which drive proactive change and agile adaptation to evolving circumstances. The emphasis on sustainability is associated with rapidly changing values, political priorities, and regulations. Furthermore, knowledge of environmental and social problems and solutions accumulates constantly (refs). In such conditions of ‘environmental turbulence’, ordinary efficiency-oriented capabilities are often found insufficient and public organizations should invest in developing dynamic capabilities for managing change processes to meet with new external demands (Piening, 2013), led by managerial efforts (Felin & Powell, 2016). Our finding suggest implementing a reflective management cycle, where sustainability goals are formulated, operationalized, implemented and continuously re-evaluated in light of new knowledge and diverse understandings of value

Enabling Transformative Change: Investigating Capabilities for Sustainability in City Management

Public organizations are increasingly struggling with sustainability challenges for various reasons. First, being complex and cross-cutting by nature (Dunlop and Russel 2012), sustainability extends to structures and processes in different levels and branches of organizations making it an issue of governance and management (Dinica 2018). While the pivotal role of public sector in promoting sustainability has been highlighted in previous literature (e.g., Jordan and Lenschow, 2009; Leuenberger and Bartle 2014; Fiorino 2010; Dunlop and Russel 2012), there is a lack of understanding and focus especially on the strategically critical role of local government in the field of sustainable development (e.g., Hoornweg et al. 2011; Krause, Feiock, and Hawkins 2016; Castán Broto, Trencher, Iwaszuk & Westman 2019). Secondly, promoting sustainability has been difficult for the dual role of cities in solving and contributing to sustainability challenges. This means that cities constitute both problems and solutions to sustainability challenges (Grimm et al. 2008). Cities are local scenes where the global ecological crises, e.g., forest fires, drought and pollution concretize, but they are also sites where innovative activity to mitigation and adaptation happens. For example, as Grimm et al. (2008) put it, the local nature of biodiversity loss and climate crisis make cities represent microcosms of global changes, making them interesting cases for understanding the dynamics of sustainability and responses to change. However, there is scarce understanding about how to promote these new aims in public management. Our study contributes by identifying a set of capabilities that enable a city to promote transformative change toward sustainability. Our findings are based on an investigation of an extensive development project, where the top management of the second biggest city in Finland, Espoo, developed a vision of a new management approach for comprehensive sustainability. Our empirical material includes workshop and individual interview data gathered during fall 2020 and spring 2021 during the impact-driven governance project. Participants in the workshops and interviews were the city mayor and other senior members from strategy, governance, data management and service development units. In total 151 pages of transcribed text was analysed. We analysed the text following the Gioia method (Gioia, et al., 2012). The Gioia method, especially used in management and organizational studies, is used to study people’s interpretations of event. Our findings suggest that promoting transformative change requires dynamic capabilities (Kattel & Mazzucato, 2018; Teece et al., 1997; Piening, 2013), which drive proactive change and agile adaptation to evolving circumstances. The emphasis on sustainability is associated with rapidly changing values, political priorities, and regulations. Furthermore, knowledge of environmental and social problems and solutions accumulates constantly (refs). In such conditions of ‘environmental turbulence’, ordinary efficiency-oriented capabilities are often found insufficient and public organizations should invest in developing dynamic capabilities for managing change processes to meet with new external demands (Piening, 2013), led by managerial efforts (Felin & Powell, 2016). Our finding suggest implementing a reflective management cycle, where sustainability goals are formulated, operationalized, implemented and continuously re-evaluated in light of new knowledge and diverse understandings of value

Integration of gender in international science, technology and innovation (STI) collaboration:learning from international feminist policies

Science, technology and innovation (STI) is increasingly characterized by its international nature (Griset, 2020). The rising internationalization of STI is argued to be due to the growing importance of the knowledge economy, and the role of STI in finding solutions to wicked problems, such as climate change (Leijten, 2017; Schot and Steinmuller 2018). Yet, both international affairs and STI institutions that have impact on STI policies continue to be masculinised spaces, where overall resistance to women’s meaningful participation remains standard practice. This has not only shaped the ways in which international STI policies and programmes influence different segments of the population, but also demarcated the group who makes decisions at the international sphere, what kind of questions are being raised and addressed, and who primarily benefits from international STI agreements and its outputs, including funding. Following the gendered organizations theory’s notion of (STI and international) institutions “as sites that (re)produce gender dynamics and the gender order” (Rodriguez and Guenther 2022), we explore through a comparative case study organizations that have either implemented feminism into official (foreign) policy principle, or work as forerunners in integrating gender into STI related projects and ask “how can feminist (foreign) policy principles guide integration of gender dimension into STI diplomacy?”