Technological Forecasting & Social Change

This article contributes to the field of innovation studies by addressing the role of cultural legitimacy in technical innovation journeys. The article develops a new perspective that connects insights from discourse theory, interpretive approaches to culture, cultural sociology and social movement theory. In contrast to functionalist and structuralist approaches (which tend to conceptualize culture in a top-down deterministic manner), our cultural-performative perspective emphasizes agency, collective sensemaking and framing struggles. Cultural change is a contested process, in which various groups perform on public stages to influence the attitudes and opinions of relevant audiences who provide financial resources, protection or support relevant for innovation journeys. We demonstrate the usefulness of this perspective with a longitudinal case study of nuclear energy in the Netherlands (1945-1986), which encompasses both the creation of legitimacy in the 1950s and 1960s, and its contestation by an anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s, which halted the innovation journey. 2010.

[1]  Geert Verbong,et al.  Dung, Sludge, and Landfill: Biogas Technology in the Netherlands, 1970-2000 , 2004, Technology and culture.

[2]  Jacquelyne Luce.  Cultural Sociology , 2011 .

[3]  R. Koopmans,et al.  The Political Construction of the Nuclear Energy Issue and Its Impact on the Mobilization of Anti-Nuclear Movements in Western Europe , 1995 .

[4]  Mario Bunge,et al.  How Does It Work? , 2004 .

[5]  Jeffrey C. Alexander,et al.  Social Performance: Cultural pragmatics: social performance between ritual and strategy , 2006 .

[6]  Timothy G. Pollock,et al.  Media Legitimation Effects in the Market for Initial Public Offerings , 2003 .

[7]  Bryan Pfaffenberger,et al.  Technological Dramas , 1992 .

[8]  Raghu Garud,et al.  The innovation journey , 1999 .

[9]  Gerald F. Davis,et al.  The Decline and Fall of the Conglomerate Firm in the 1980s: The Deinstitutionalization of an Organizational Form , 1994 .

[10]  D. Snow,et al.  Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment , 2000 .

[11]  W. Gamson,et al.  Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach , 1989, American Journal of Sociology.

[12]  Maarten A. Hajer,et al.  The Politics of Environmental Discourse , 1997 .

[13]  Frank W. Geels,et al.  Cultural Enthusiasm, Resistance and the Societal Embedding of New Technologies: Psychotropic Drugs in the 20th Century , 2007, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[14]  Arie Rip,et al.  Antagonistic Patterns and New Technologies , 1998 .

[15]  Mark C. Suchman.  Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches , 1995 .

[16]  Paul M. Hirsch,et al.  Social Movements, Field Frames, and Industry Emergence: A Cultural-Political Perspective , 2003 .

[17]  B. Pentland.  Building Process Theory with Narrative: from Description to Explanation , 1999 .

[18]  Howard E. Aldrich,et al.  Fools Rush in? The Institutional Context of Industry Creation , 1994 .

[19]  Ann Swidler.  CULTURE IN ACTION: SYMBOLS AND STRATEGIES* , 1986 .

[20]  Timothy J. Dowd,et al.  Legitimacy as a Social Process , 2006 .

[21]  P. Hedström,et al.  Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory. , 1999 .

[22]  Wolfgang Rudig,et al.  States and anti-nuclear movements , 1994 .

[23]  Björn A. Sandén,et al.  ‘Legitimation’ and ‘development of positive externalities’: two key processes in the formation phase of technological innovation systems , 2008, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[24]  R. Eyerman,et al.  Social Movements , 2019, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture.

[25]  Arie Rip,et al.  Societal Embedding and Product Creation Management , 1997 .

[26]  Staffan Jacobsson,et al.  The politics and policy of energy system transformation—explaining the German diffusion of renewable energy technology , 2006 .

[27]  G. Carroll,et al.  The Liability of Newness: Age Dependence in Organizational Death Rates , 1983 .

[28]  J. D. McCarthy,et al.  Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[29]  Chris Rojek,et al.  Decorative Sociology: Towards a Critique of the Cultural Turn , 2000 .

[30]  Mike Michael,et al.  Prepublication Copy of , 2009 .

[31]  Heather Lovell,et al.  Discourse and innovation journeys: the case of low energy housing in the UK , 2008, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[32]  Jens Newig,et al.  Public Attention, Political Action: the Example of Environmental Regulation , 2004 .

[33]  W. Scott,et al.  Institutions and Organizations. , 1995 .

[34]  A. Pettigrew.  Longitudinal Field Research on Change: Theory and Practice , 1990 .

[35]  M. Zimmerman,et al.  Beyond Survival: Achieving New Venture Growth by Building Legitimacy , 2002 .

[36]  J. Uitermark,et al.  PERFORMING AUTHORITY: DISCURSIVE POLITICS AFTER THE ASSASSINATION OF THEO VAN GOGH , 2008 .

[37]  Gerald F. Davis,et al.  Social movements and organization theory , 2005 .

[38]  M. Lounsbury.  Cultural Entrepreneurship: Stories, Legitimacy and the Acquisition of Resources , 2001 .

[39]  Claude Lévi-Strauss,et al.  Structural Anthropology Volume II , 1977 .

[40]  Andrew Abbott,et al.  From Causes to Events , 1992 .

[41]  C. Oliver.  The Antecedents of Deinstitutionalization , 1992 .

[42]  L. Henderson.  On the Social System , 1993 .

[43]  Andrew Jamison,et al.  Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach , 1991 .

[44]  B. Flyvbjerg.  Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research , 2006, 1304.1186.