Small Holds Sway: How Small Businesses Mobilize Knowledge to Support Action in Learning Processes for Sustainability Transformations

Transformations of the industrialized food sector toward more sustainable food production, manufacturing, and consumption take place through individual and collective learning processes. Achieving transformational change requires intra- and inter-organizational learning to embed alternative principles in business operation, foster new social arrangements, and develop creative strategies in support of sustainable food practices. Research has made much progress in conceptualizing transformation processes of the food sector – addressing definitional ‘what’ questions. Also, scholars have conducted thorough analyses of the underlying motivations that support businesses in pursuing organizational sustainability – addressing motivational ‘why’ questions. Yet, empirical research examining how businesses engage in learning processes that can lead to broader transformational change is still missing – that is, the research on the role of businesses in the food sector has not engaged with ‘how’ questions. This thesis responds to this gap by building on a dynamic conception of learning to empirically explore the relationship between transformations of the food sector and the contextual meaning-making, knowledge mobilizing, and procedural action through which businesses realize change for sustainability. More specifically, this thesis draws attention to the role that different forms of knowledge assume in supporting intra- and inter-organizational learning processes that allow businesses to purposefully take action for sustainability in complex situations. For the empirical research, I employ a mixed-methods approach (including semi-structured interviews, participant observations, analytic autoethnography, and document analysis) to examine how learning supports craft breweries – small, independently owned businesses that are inspired by non-industrial production methods – to collectively advance system change. I present the conducted research in three articles detailing how small businesses engage in and bring about transformational change for sustainability. While written as independent articles, they comprise a whole, as collectively, this work offers insights into how small businesses draw on knowledge as a resource to support action for sustainability. The first manuscript empirically demonstrates the importance of alternative narratives for learning as they enable small businesses to construct storylines of how they engage in sectoral transformations. I explore how craft breweries draw on alternative principles and actions to guide the construction of narratives that verbalize a new future into existence beyond industrialized and competitive markets. This research offers a nuanced understanding of the collective ability of small businesses to discursively construct new meanings and new stories that illustrate the need for and existence of alternative social arrangements to support sustainability transformations. The second manuscript elucidates how craft breweries that work in a concentrated and internationally connected industry, mobilize knowledge in support of collective action to construct sustainability niches in an otherwise hostile environment. The findings demonstrate how learning is supported by the translation between tacit and explicit forms of knowledge, so-called knowledge conversion. The research shows how small businesses challenge the conventional industry logics and practices by mobilizing knowledge conversion in support of sustainability experimentation. I offer a comprehensive conceptual framework and detailed empirical examination of how small businesses respond to and transform the context in which they operate, collectively formulate goals for directing change, and bring tangible assets into service of experimentation to realize emergent possibilities. The third manuscript systematically explores the learning processes through which entrepreneurs develop sustainability strategies while navigating the tensions and challenges involved in realizing sustainability within the host context. Building on conceptualizations of entrepreneurship as an evolutionary process, I empirically explore the learning process of two small businesses in the brewing industry. This research details how small businesses create and mobilize knowledge to intentionally design organizational change, develop shared agency for the support of appropriate interventions, and leverage context-specific resources for acting appropriately in complex situations. Moreover, I offer insights into how small businesses can engage leverage entrepreneurial actions to support learning processes for sustainability strategies. This thesis emphasizes the ability of small businesses as meaning-makers and proposes a dynamic approach for understanding the role of knowledge and action in transformations for sustainability. I offer empirical evidence of the learning processes through which businesses generate meaningful action for contextually realizing change, and reflexively and deliberately (re)align their actor roles with the so created alternative social arrangements. Knowledge plays a crucial role in this process as it supports small businesses to creatively and cooperatively shape future goals and direct change. Overall, this work can help to support small businesses in coordinating concerted efforts to create viable enterprises from bringing about change for sustainability. It draws attention to the agency of small businesses in crafting new narratives, alternative social arrangements, and sustainability strategies that help support transformations of the industrialized food sector

Methodological Challenges in Sustainability Science: A Call for Method Plurality, Procedural Rigor and Longitudinal Research

Sustainability science encompasses a unique field that is defined through its purpose, the problem it addresses, and its solution-oriented agenda. However, this orientation creates significant methodological challenges. In this discussion paper, we conceptualize sustainability problems as wicked problems to tease out the key challenges that sustainability science is facing if scientists intend to deliver on its solution-oriented agenda. Building on the available literature, we discuss three aspects that demand increased attention for advancing sustainability science: 1) methods with higher diversity and complementarity are needed to increase the chance of deriving solutions to the unique aspects of wicked problems; for instance, mixed methods approaches are potentially better suited to allow for an approximation of solutions, since they cover wider arrays of knowledge; 2) methodologies capable of dealing with wicked problems demand strict procedural and ethical guidelines, in order to ensure their integration potential; for example, learning from solution implementation in different contexts requires increased comparability between research approaches while carefully addressing issues of legitimacy and credibility; and 3) approaches are needed that allow for longitudinal research, since wicked problems are continuous and solutions can only be diagnosed in retrospect; for example, complex dynamics of wicked problems play out across temporal patterns that are not necessarily aligned with the common timeframe of participatory sustainability research. Taken together, we call for plurality in methodologies, emphasizing procedural rigor and the necessity of continuous research to effectively addressing wicked problems as well as methodological challenges in sustainability science

Market transformations as collaborative change: institutional co‐evolution through small business entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship may be one entry point to trigger transformations toward sustainability. Yet, there is limited knowledge on the ability of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to play a role in transformation processes, beyond the initial stages of niche innovation. Building on data collected through 125 interviews in Toronto, Vancouver and London, we examine perceived contributions of SME-led sustainable entrepreneurship to market transformations. Our data show that sustainable entrepreneurs face significant constraints in individually exercising influence over mass markets, as they encounter social forces that generate resistance to change. However, SMEs are able to act collaboratively to shape transformation processes. We propose three mechanisms of institutional co-evolution that capture these contributions: network learning, collective norm-construction and collaborative advocacy

Conceptualizing the potential of entrepreneurship to shape urban sustainability transformations

Entrepreneurship has emerged as a key element for experimentation and niche innovation in sustainability transitions. Yet, its contributions beyond this initial stage and the multi-pronged role that entrepreneurs can play in transformation processes remain elusive. In response, we conceptualize and empirically illustrate how entrepreneurs can contribute to innovations within firms and to city-wide processes of change. With insights from small- and medium-sized enterprises in European and North American cities, we develop a framework encompassing eight intervention types through which entrepreneurs shape urban sustainability transformations. We propose avenues for future research to better understand the distributed role of entrepreneurship and how it can contribute to shaping and accelerating change toward sustainability across integrated levels of urban transformations

Untangling the motivations of different stakeholders for urban greenspace conservation in sub-Saharan Africa

Urban expansion is threatening ecosystem service delivery, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where urbanisation rates are among the fastest globally. Greenspaces offer opportunities to prioritise ecosystem services for city residents. However, the success of greenspace conservation is more often driven by their acceptability to a range of stakeholders than by scientific evidence, highlighting the need to acknowledge multiple perspectives when implementing greenspace conservation activities. We used the Q-methodology to describe and compare the viewpoints of three stakeholder categories for the services and disservices provided by greenspaces in two fast-growing Ghanaian cities. Ecosystem services were generally valued, however there was strong heterogeneity in viewpoints among respondents. The main concerns included regulating services, heritage aspects and contributions to economic development. Comparisons between viewpoints revealed both substantial differences between stakeholder categories and consensus around specific ecosystem services. Recognising shared viewpoints and areas of disagreement may increase the acceptability of greenspace implementation measures. Furthermore, addressing the disservices brought about via greenspace degradation is crucial. Our study shows that, in fast-growing cities in Ghana, a forerunner of urban development in Sub-Saharan Africa, specific ecosystem services such as shade provision, play a pivotal role in promoting greenspace conservation

Networking Cities after Paris: Weighing the Ambition of Urban Climate Change Experimentation

Over the past few decades, cities have repeatedly demonstrated high levels of ambition with regard to climate action. Global environmental governance has been marked by a proliferation of policy actions taken by local governments around the world to demonstrate their potential to advance climate change mitigation and adaptation. Leading ‘by example’ and demonstrating the extent of action that it is possible to deliver, cities have aspired to raise the ambition of national and international climate governance and put action into practice via a growing number of ‘climate change experiments’ delivered on the ground. Yet accounts of the potential of cities in global environmental governance have often stopped short of a systematic valuation of the nature and impact of the networked dimension of this action. This article addresses this by assessing the nature, and challenges faced by, urban climate governance in the post-Paris era, focusing on the ‘experimentation’ undertaken in cities and the city networks shaping this type of governance. First, we unpack the concept of ‘urban climate change experimentation’, the ways in which it is networked, and the forces driving it. In the second and third parts of the article, we discuss two main pitfalls of networked urban experimentation in its current form, focusing on issues of scaling experiments and the nature of experimentation. We call for increased attention to ‘scaling up’ experiments beyond urban levels of governance, and to transformative experimentation with governance and politics by and in cities. Finally, we consider how these pitfalls allow us to weigh the potential of urban climate ambition, and consider the pathways available for supporting urban climate change experimentation

Redefining the role of urban studies Early Career Academics in the post-COVID-19 university

We are an international collective of Early Career Academics (ECAs) who met throughout 2020 to explore the implications of COVID-19 on precarious academics. With this intervention, our aims are to voice commonly shared experiences and concerns and to reflect on the extent to which the pandemic offers opportunities to redefine Higher Education and research institutions, in a context of ongoing precarity and funding cuts. Specifically, we explore avenues to build solidarity across institutions and geographies, to ensure that the conduct of urban research, and support offered to ECAs, allows for more inclusivity, diversity, security and equitability. *The Urban ECA Collective emerged from a workshop series described in this article which intended to foster international solidarity among self-defined early career academics working within urban research.ITESO, A.C

Capturing residents' values for urban green space: mapping, analysis and guidance for practice

Planning for green space is guided by standards and guidelines but there is currently little understanding of the variety of values people assign to green spaces or their determinants. Land use planners need to know what values are associated with different landscape characteristics and how value elicitation techniques can inform decisions. We designed a Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) study and surveyed residents of four urbanising suburbs in the Lower Hunter region of NSW, Australia. Participants assigned dots on maps to indicate places they associated with a typology of values (specific attributes or functions considered important) and negative qualities related to green spaces. The marker points were digitised and aggregated according to discrete park polygons for statistical analysis. People assigned a variety of values to green spaces (such as aesthetic value or social interaction value), which were related to landscape characteristics. Some variables (e.g. distance to water) were statistically associated with multiple open space values. Distance from place of residence however did not strongly influence value assignment after landscape configuration was accounted for. Value compatibility analysis revealed that some values co-occurred in park polygons more than others (e.g. nature value and health/therapeutic value). Results highlight the potential for PPGIS techniques to inform green space planning through the spatial representation of complex human-nature relationships. However, a number of potential pitfalls and challenges should be addressed. These include the non-random spatial arrangement of landscape features that can skew interpretation of results and the need to communicate clearly about theory that explains observed patterns

Policy mixes for sustainability transitions: new approaches and insightsthrough bridging innovation and policy studies

There has been an increasing interest in science, technology and innovation policy studies in the topic of policymixes. While earlier studies conceptualised policy mixes mainly in terms of combinations of instruments to supportinnovation, more recent literature extends the focus to how policy mixes can foster sustainability transitions. For this,broader policy mix conceptualisations have emerged which also include considerations of policy goals and policystrategies; policy mix characteristics such as consistency, coherence, credibility and comprehensiveness; as well aspolicy making and implementation processes. It is these broader conceptualisations of policy mixes which are thesubject of the special issue introduced in this article. We aim at supporting the emergence of a new strand ofinterdisciplinary social science research on policy mixes which combines approaches, methods and insights frominnovation and policy studies to further such broader policy mix research with a specific focus on fostering sus-tainability transitions. In this article we introduce this topic and present a bibliometric analysis of the literature onpolicy mixes in both fields as well as their emerging connections. We also introduce five major themes in the policymix literature and summarise the contributions made by the articles in the special issue to these: methodologicaladvances; policy making and implementation; actors and agency; evaluating policy mixes; and the co-evolution ofpolicy mixes and socio-technical systems. We conclude by summarising key insights for policy making

Ecosystem services of collectively managed urban gardens : exploring factors affecting synergies and trade-offs at the site level

Collective management of urban green space is being acknowledged and promoted. The need to understand productivity and potential trade-offs between co-occurring ecosystem services arising from collectively managed pockets of green space is pivotal to the design and promotion of both productive urban areas and effective stakeholder participation in their management. Quantitative assessments of ecosystem service production were obtained from detailed site surveys at ten examples of collectively managed urban gardens in Greater Manchester, UK. Correlation analyses demonstrated high levels of synergy between ecological (biodiversity) and social (learning and well-being) benefits related to such spaces. Trade-offs were highly mediated by site size and design, resulting in a tension between increasing site area and the co-management of ecosystem services. By highlighting synergies, trade-offs and the significance of site area, the results offer insight into the spatially sensitive nature of ecosystem services arising from multi-functional collectively managed urban gardens