Abstract
Problems referred to as wicked, messy, complex, and meta-level, by their very nature, require involving multiple and diverse organizations. Issues such as climate change, poverty, sustainable agriculture, and health care involve many hundreds of organizations at a national level; at a global level this easily increases to many thousands. Emerging their collective power into an effective force represents an enormous organizing challenge. Drawing from complexity and global networking knowledge, and building on the concept of “innovation system,” this article develops the concept of “societal change system” as a framework to support addressing the organizing challenge. This arose through analysis of global change initiatives aiming to integrate sustainability concerns into the production of electricity, which included a meeting of leaders of such change initiatives. The activities produced recommendations for greatly enhancing change efforts with pragmatic steps to develop the societal change system in which they are embedded.
Keywords
Introduction
The world is awash in huge change challenges in issues such as water, financial stability, climate change, food security, and degradation of seas. The world is also awash in responses to address these challenges. How can these sorts of complex operating environments of business be greatly improved to support the emergence of sustainable enterprise and effective responses to such challenges? Certainly, the commitment of a company is only one factor. If its operating environment is not supportive, the company advances toward becoming a sustainable enterprise with great difficulty. This is what spurred the investigation that produced this article.
Consider the case of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) and the multitude of companies working with it. SE4All is a global, multistakeholder entity initiated by the United Nations that arose out of the ashes of the Kyoto Process. Its website explains that it “brings together top-level leadership from all sectors of society—governments, business and civil society” (SE4All, 2014b). It aims to support transformation of energy systems, globally. Three goals are articulated by SE4All for 2030:
Ensure universal access to modern energy services
Double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency
Double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
This describes a huge change challenge. The goals require something beyond the capability of current organizational paradigms of business, governments, and civil society organizations (nonprofits/NGOs). SE4All is essentially a loose network aiming to support coherence among a large number of efforts—the development of an operating environment and relationships that support its goals. Currently, SE4All is mobilizing effort and developing coherence around “accelerators” for key issues like energy efficiency. Coherence aims to produce convergence of action among participants (Gulati, 2014). Coordination among all of SE4All’s participants is impossible given the complexity of the issues and number of efforts. The objective is coherence that supports realizing synergies, addressing unproductive duplications of effort, reducing debilitating conflict in approaches, and filling gaps in necessary effort.
However, the underlying dynamics and structures to address such a change challenge as SE4All’s are still poorly understood and therefore not integrated into SE4All’s strategy. A framework would be valuable that guides coherence and convergence to support SE4All realize its global societal transformation goals. Also, tools are needed by those working on these change challenges. Since addressing many other huge change challenges of today has a similar coherence-convergence need, such a framework and tools could be of wide benefit.
This article describes a 2-year effort to develop such a framework and methodology. It begins by presenting the challenge as one to address a wicked problem. The meaning of that term is explored along with exploration of responses to address such problems. This lays the foundation for understanding the challenge as one to create a societal change system (SCS). Then described is development of a methodology as a series of steps for those working on large systems change issues to support emergence of an effective, coherent SCS. Finally, the article proposes how the SCS and steps can be further developed and applied.
Foundations of the Approach
Wicked Problems as Systems
SE4All’s challenge is a “wicked problem” (Churchman, 1967; Rittel & Webber, 1973), a term that was recently described as possessing characteristics listed below (Waddock, Meszoely, Waddell, & Dentoni, 2015) and applied to SE4All:
Having no definitive boundaries, many actors, and high interconnectivity with other problems: There are literally tens of thousands of organizations whose work is highly relevant to SE4All’s goals.
Requiring holistic strategies—piecemeal solutions do not work: Focusing on one of the goals will undermine support for SE4All—one reason Kyoto collapsed is because it did nothing to address access to energy.
Possessing nonlinear cause-effect relationships that are difficult to determine: There is a multiplicity of connections with new roles and relationships required to produce novel actors like prosumers who are both energy consumers and producers; then there are issues of how the energy system interacts with others like food and water.
Lacking finality of resolution: There is no ultimate boundary on sustainability and the amount of energy used; there is increasingly common reference to having a net positive environmental benefit, for example.
Continually emerging patterns where predictability is impossible: The high degree of innovation means that experience-based predictability is not possible.
Lacking ultimately “right” answers, and where contextual factors mean every solution is a one-shot operation: Different locations have unique combinations of factors—such as technology, sun, wind, skills, culture—that influence the appropriateness and viability of responses; this mixture will be continually changing, as well.
Such a description is also associated with “messes” (Ackoff, 1974), meta-problems (Trist, 1983), complexity (Snowden & Boone, 2007), and complex adaptive systems (Geli-Mann, 1994; Holland, 1992). With meta-problems, Trist emphasizes the interorganizational domain nature of the issue, where no one organization can address the problem. SE4All’s approach is distinguished by the diversity and number of organizations it is engaging globally. It might be associated with other multistakeholder networks that have been emerging around many issues. Labels for global examples include Global Public Policy Networks (Annan, 2000; Reinicke, 1999-2000), Global Issue Networks (Rischard, 2002), Global Action Networks (Waddell, 2011), and Global Solutions Networks (Tapscott, 2014); in the United States, the more popular relevant terminology is “backbone organization” (Kania & Kramer, 2011), although it is not usually thought of in global terms. Global examples include the UN Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative, Transparency International, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, and the Forest Stewardship Council.
These networks have a key role in addressing their wicked problem. In Trist’s language, they are “referent organizations” that support other organizations coming together to collectively apply their resources to an issue. These are “whole networks . . . founded by including those organizations that interact with one another in an effort to achieve a common purpose” (Provan, Fish, & Sydow, 2007; p. 482). The networks are very large, but they do not comprise anywhere near the full array of organizations and initiatives addressing their issue. SE4All, for example, engages hundreds of organizations, but these are still a subset of all the initiatives working on its goals. The entirety can be thought of as SE4All’s “ecosystem,” a concept that has recently gained popularity because of the power it provides for looking at complex issues and guiding action to address them. Introduced by biological sciences and popularized through the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005), the term “ecosystem” originally referred to
a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system. (Wikipedia, 2014)
The term “ecosystem” as applied to social and organizational spheres emerged from social evolutionary and social ecology theory, and work crossing social and environmental concerns. Today, the concept of social ecosystem is in common use to refer to relationships of individuals and/or organizations that are interacting as a system, with systems typically defined as interrelated and interacting parts working to produce a shared goal (Ostrom, 2009; von Bertalanffy, 1968).
The SE4All social ecosystem is defined as consisting of all those organizations that are engaged with SE4All’s goal of sustainable energy for all (energy producers and those involved in realizing the change—opponents and supporters). This ecosystem has developed to a point where there is broad general agreement around the world with SE4All’s goals, while noting resistance by many energy system incumbents and opposition by some such as American politicians. The real work of SE4All is about how to effectively realize its goals. The ecosystem consists of many interacting interests where “ramifications (of decisions) for the whole system are thoroughly confusing” (Rittel & Webber, 1973) and which can provoke authoritative, competitive, or collaborative responses (Roberts, 2000).
The answer to this “how” question is informed in general terms by work addressing wicked problems as complex adaptive systems (CAS; Beinhocker, 1997; Geli-Mann, 1994; Kania & Kramer, 2011; Rotmans & Loorbach, 2009). These are complex problems where traditional goal-oriented planning logic must be subordinate to an emergent learning logic with interventions “fostering” development of the CAS (Holland, 1992) by spurring “beneficial coherence” (Snowden, 2005) that enhances system effectiveness (Drucker, 1967). Establishing SE4All can be thought of as a response to address an “underorganized system” (Brown 1980). This leads to seeing SE4All’s work as developing the system’s coherence—addressing the ecosystems’ potential synergies, redundancies, and action gaps with the eye to emerging patterns of interaction at a higher (more effective and transcending) level (Levin, 1998).
Some key logics associated with CAS work are the following:
Self-organizing: Vacuums are filled quickly and there is always some type of response to new needs.
Emergence: Many responses to address wicked problems gradually form innovative patterns of relationships and structures that represent organizing inventions. Because of their innovative quality, they are often not “seen” by use of traditional lenses (such as “organizations”).
Directional nudges: The impact of interventions to address wicked problems cannot be predicted and they often have unintended negative impacts. This favors multiple modest efforts intended to move in a direction, rather than large efforts toward a goal in the traditional planning sense.
Learning and experimenting: Realizing “sustainable energy for all” is highly dependent on context and requires invention. Roll-out strategies do not work.
In terms of understanding SE4All, these elements suggest that analysis of relationships among organizations in its ecosystem could provide some valuable insight about how to build on what is arising to realize sustainability for all, in contrast to a traditional planned top-down approach.
Societal Change Systems Versus Production Systems
Systems such as ones related to energy that provide services for society are a particular type of ecosystem. They include the full spectrum of organizations, knowledge, and practices associated with the service. A transition describes a fundamental change in the rearrangement of such a system (Markard, Raven, & Truffer, 2012); this type of fundamental change is reflected in SE4All’s goals. This emphasis on “transition” as the wicked problem suggests further specialization of the type of ecosystem that SE4All requires to be effective. It requires a specific type of ecosystem defined by the mission of supporting large systems change. This is change of
. . . breadth . . . that engages a very large number of individuals, organizations and geographies across a wide range of systems . . . (and change of) depth: (large systems change) is not simply adding more of what exists or making rearrangements within existing power structures and relationships, but rather changes the complex relationships. (Waddell, Waddock, et al., 2015, p. 7)
Can the system be usefully divided into two parts to provide useful insights in development of transition pathways: The change part and the production part? This question arose because the research project framed its question as “how to greatly enhance the enabling/operating environment of electricity utilities to support emergence of sustainable enterprise?”
Applied to SE4All, we can see that its mission is not to provide energy services—that is the task of utilities and other service providers. Rather, its mission is to support effective integration of sustainability concerns (as expressed in its three goals) into the activity of the energy production system. The change and production systems have not just different missions, but distinctive core participants, logics, and competencies.
In electricity, the core production system participants are fuel providers, energy generators, transmission and distribution service providers, and consumers, with policy makers and others playing supporting roles. They are dominated by a commercial sales, supply–demand, input–output logic. Core competencies involve energy technologies and knowledge and management of generation through to uses of energy.
The change system consists of different type of stakeholder composition, logic, and competency. It consists of change initiatives that have diverse stakeholder leadership and participation: research institutes, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, change initiatives of the service providers, and multistakeholder organizations. They are working with a complex adaptive system logic that intimately involves participation and collaboration among these diverse stakeholders, emergence and other CAS logics already described. Competencies are associated with large systems change knowledge, strategies, tools, and methods. In short, it is a SCS for electricity. Its description was a focus of the investigation.
The image of the double helix of DNA arose as one way to think of the change and production system relationship. Ackoff (1973) observed that
a system is more than the sum of its parts; it is an indivisible whole. It loses its essential properties when it is taken apart. The elements of a system may themselves be systems, and every system may be part of a larger system. (p. 664)
The approach developed here reflects this thinking. There are two systems whose respective power is interdependent. In that double-helix model there are two intertwined strands that can be likened to the two systems, with the presence of many bridges and exchanges between them being a critical quality. These bridges take a variety of forms such as projects and forums. Some interorganizational networks included in this study have a critical bridging function (Brown, 1991, 2015; Westley & Vredenburg, 1991). One of the best examples is renewable energy trade associations that are actively promoting change in the system, and at the same time its members include companies conventionally producing electricity.
The investigation into SE4All and sustainability efforts evolved into the proposition that distinguishing between the change and production systems produces valuable insights into addressing wicked problems. In particular, the focus became researching emergent patterns and structures that would provide guidance in the development of coherence and convergence to enhance the effectiveness of the SCS.
Innovation Systems and Functions
SE4All’s goals require transformation of a large technological system. “Innovation systems” is a relevant concept that over the past three decades has proven powerful for addressing challenges of developing and introducing new technologies. This approach sees the system as a “. . . wide range of factors, organizations, and policies influence the capabilities of a nation’s firms to innovate” (Nelson, 1993). Economic growth and technology are core underpinnings of innovation systems and associated policy (Alkemade, Hekkert, & Negro, 2011; Geels, 2013; Stirling, 2014; Weber & Rohracher, 2012). Social goals are still poorly integrated into this technological innovation systems work. However, an increasing number of observers claim that technological innovation is not the issue: The real issue is how we reorganize and apply more effectively what is already known in terms of physical technologies, for the social good (Edenhofer et al., 2011; Sen, 2000; Sovacool, 2008; Stirling, 2014; Westley et al., 2011). Although technologies play an important role in addressing critical sustainability issues in transitioning industries, focusing on them as “the answer” provides limited and distorted guidance to the bigger change challenge. That challenge includes important policy, cultural, structural, and other issues that the innovation systems tradition treats as a function of the question of how to introduce new technologies. This suggests the importance of seeing SE4All’s concern as one that includes a comprehensive range of change activities, as well as technological invention.
Both innovation systems and large change network investigations have included an important line of inquiry about developing coherence. Coherence raises questions about what such systems and networks must do, in order to be successful in terms of their own aspirations. This has led to definition of “functions” as “processes that are highly important for well performing innovation systems” (Hekkert, Suurs, Negro, Kuhlmann, & Smits, 2007, p. 414). Analysis of institutions in terms of their contributions to the functioning of the larger system of which they are part has a long history (Durkheim, 1893/1966; Merton, 1949/1968; Parsons, 1967). Technological innovation systems work has produced valuable analysis of system functions that is highly relevant to SE4All (Bergek, Hekkert, & Jacobsson, 2008; Bergek, Jacobsson, Carlsson, Lindmark, & Rickne, 2008; Hekkert et al., 2007; Johnson, 2001). A useful comparison of these has resulted in seven functions (Markard & Truffer, 2008). However, these functional definitions are associated with technological innovation rather than the broader change ecosystem that is the subject of this research. Looking from a broader change perspective with global change networks led to identification of six critical functions (Waddell, 2011).
Table 1 summarizes these functional perspectives. The seven from Markard et al. (2012) are in italics. The prototyping function represents an addition to both the Markard and Waddell analyses; it is added because it is seen as an activity that is so critical that it has been embedded in Markard’s definition of technological innovation systems and Waddell’s definition of Global Action Networks. The advocating function is thought of as an aggressive approach to Markard’s knowledge dissemination strategy; without a powerful advocating change function, activity could easily resemble a traditional bureaucratic approach. Measuring might also be thought of as part of the knowledge development strategy, assessing to indicate movement in the desired direction seems critical for a change system. In any case, the core concern is that the functions are collectively comprehensive and distinguished in a way that is operationally and analytically useful for the ensuing analysis of SE4All’s SCS as explored below.
Change System Functions.
The Research Activities
To ground the model in empirical reality, rather than “energy” and the whole of SE4All’s world, the research focused on the more narrow “electricity system” in the tradition of Praetorius et al. (Bauknecht & Cames, 2009): The energy production system was defined as the system of electricity generation–transmission–distribution–consumption and most notably omits (1) extractive industries and (2) transportation. The founding concepts of a SCS requiring seven healthy functions for effectiveness drove the research approach, which consisted of the following activities in this order:
Approximately one dozen interviews with people working to change the energy system to refine thinking about the challenge being to develop a SCS
Webcrawls (see The Societal Change System for Electricity section) to produce an initial map of the systemic change matrix (SCM) and a list of initiatives for further investigation
Creation of a survey tool to hold comparative data collected through review of documents, websites, and interviews with 65 initiatives, which included information such as missions, stakeholder composition, control structure, and major activities
Refinement of the survey tool to reflect the subsystems and functions (described below)
Web and document-based Change Profiles (see below) for 19 initiatives to test/develop the ability of the Profiles to collect comprehensive key information
Validated Change Profiles for 11 initiatives with staff from the change initiatives, to further test the Profile structure and make a tentative value assessment
A 1-1/2 day meeting of the project team and five change initiative leaders to test the validity and value of the concepts and how they could be applied
The project team consisted of four people. One had particular experience in mapping, another in meeting facilitation, a third in electricity system transition, and the fourth in networks; all had systems change knowledge. The activities led to development of a methodology for greatly enhancing the collective power of change efforts as a SCS, and development of the Systems Change Matrix as one way to visually represent the SCS. The components are described here, but their definition evolved iteratively out of the research activities. That is to say, an abductive approach was taken of reviewing and refining coding and categories that reflects grounded theory development (Corbin & Strauss, 2014).
The Societal Change System for Electricity
Given its global multistakeholder stature and goal to provide an overarching platform for change efforts, for exploratory purposes this research adopted SE4All’s three goals as the change system’s goals. An enormous number of change initiatives, networks, organizations, programs (hereafter called simply “initiatives”) are working on these goals. Today most are supportive of them. To define a manageable population, the analysis focused on initiatives that meet two criteria: They are global in operation and multiorganizational (i.e., networks). The change system is understood to have different levels of analysis, just as with innovation systems. While choosing to start by focusing on the global perspective may initially seem counterintuitive, it was developed for two reasons. One is that the issue of energy sustainability is increasingly recognized as a requiring a global approach. National is a critical level for regulation and markets have various levels depending on their aspects. However, markets, technology, companies, climate change and important change organizations such as SE4All, International Renewable Energy Agency, and the International Energy Agency are global. The second reason is that starting at a subglobal level always integrates idiosyncratic characteristics of that level, making model expansion problematic. On the other hand, a global approach must ensure it is applicable to other geographic levels and does not overgeneralize to a point of operational irrelevance.
The network quality includes industry, intergovernmental (e.g., UN agencies), civil society, and multistakeholder initiatives. The network condition was seen as appropriate for a global-level analysis, since individual organizations will only be able to have modest impact globally and most of significance are members of networks.
In summary, this system definition was selected as one that has manageable boundaries but nevertheless presents significant scale and array of issues, structures, and interests that avoid oversimplification that could produce a theoretically interesting but operationally irrelevant, model. Box 1 describes some illustrative examples of initiatives meeting these criteria. There are many such initiatives, but the two conditions produce a manageable number.
Global Energy Change Initiatives.
Some examples of global change initiatives in the change ecosystem for electricity are the following:
Sustainable Energy for All (SEFA): Launched by the United Nations to bring all key actors to the table to make sustainable energy for all a reality by 2030.
Electricity Governance Initiative: A network of civil society organizations dedicated to promoting transparent, inclusive, and accountable decision making in the electricity sector.
MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI): Pairing MIT’s world-class research teams with the best in industry who are responsible for moving the products of this collaboration into the energy marketplace.
ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability Low Carbon City Program: The world’s leading association of over 1,000 metropolises, cities, and urban regions dedicated to promoting global sustainability through local action.
Global Reporting Initiative: A multistakeholder network whose reporting framework aims to promote sustainability in the energy sector.
IRENA: An intergovernmental organization to promote adoption and sustainable use of renewable energy.
Global Sustainable Energy Partnership: Comprising the world’s leading electricity companies and promoting sustainable energy development.
SE4All’s goals broadened the category of initiatives in two ways. One is its focus on access to energy, particularly important in countries like India where many still are without access. Also, this research included initiatives with a climate change focus, recognizing that electricity generation is estimated to produce 41% of energy-related greenhouse gases (International Energy Agency, 2010) and is therefore renewable energy is a major concern of such initiatives.
To illustrate more the types of change global network initiatives, some are described by categorization based on their organizational type of participants:
Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) Change Initiatives: IGOs are networks of national governments, and include the UN and its agencies and the World Bank Group.
Nongovernmental Organization Networks: These are often involved in lobbying and information sharing, but also in research and pilot projects. They include the Climate Action Network, WWF Global, and Climateworks Foundation (a network of foundations).
Trade Associations: Renewable energy companies have formed networks, such as the International Solar Energy Society.
Sustainability-Focused Business Networks: This includes networks of traditional players such as electric utilities that have formed the Global Sustainable Electricity Partnership, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development that has a broader agenda that includes an electricity initiative.
Intersectoral Collaborations: The Carbon Disclosure Project and Renewable Energy Network for the 21st Century are good examples. Several networks focused on measurement also are included here, such as the Global Reporting Initiative, which has an electric utilities sector supplement.
Research Initiatives: Research institutes often have networked research such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative, which has several partners.
This system boundary provided the basis for the data collection. Identifying the set of change initiatives that can be considered reasonably comprehensive was a major concern, even with the restrictions described. An initial set of global change initiatives were identified through web searches and knowledge of the research team. These initiatives’ web addresses (seeds) were collected to conduct webcrawls, a methodology that identifies websites connected by hyperlinks using a software (www.issuecrawler.net) that “crawls” the web. This methodology has arisen with the World Wide Web for a range of investigations (Rogers, 2010). It produces both visual maps of connections and lists of connected websites. This method for identification of organizations is particularly appropriate for global change issue domains since any important organization working for global change can be expected to have a website of relative sophistication (an expectation that does not necessarily hold for more geographically constrained issue domains). The seed list of websites produced new sites that met the study parameters, and these were added to the list of seeds. These crawls were repeated until the list of sites identified for analysis used as seeds did not produce any new sites within the parameters defining change initiatives.
The final crawl produced a list of 213 sites, not all fitting the study parameters. Figure 1 can be considered a map of the global SCS for energy, although it does not include the entire 213 sites. The United Nations (but not its agencies such as the UNEP) has been excluded because the United Nations is engaged in such an array of issues that its links could be confusing and dominating. The crawls produced a list of 65 initiatives meeting the conditions.
The webcrawl map of the change system network.
The webcrawl on its own provides interesting information about the structure of the SCS globally. Larger dots have more hyperlinks. The webcrawl map places websites with the closest hyperlink ties close to each other similar to “neighborhoods” in social network analysis. The research team analyzed the map to understand what organizations had in common in different parts of the map to develop these groupings:
Marketers: Those focused on market exchanges and influencing them (including members of the production system)
Enviros: Those whose primary concern about energy is its environmental impact
Efficients: Those focused primarily on energy efficiency concerns
Governors: Intergovernmental and governmental organizations
Renewables: Those focused on renewable energy issues
Advocates: Those who focus on advocacy as a change strategy
IQs: Research- and science-oriented organizations
Understanding these seven groupings as a structure underlying the change system is useful information about their current orientation. It explains who they feel closest to. However, it is not necessarily a structure that is useful for a SCS, since much change activity inherently involves bringing together diverse stakeholders to transcend their current realities. A more useful analysis would be of what they are actually doing in terms of their missions and goals.
Five SCS Subsystems
There was an initial exploratory set of interviews and review of documentation including websites. This produced a second data-gathering framework that included a survey structure for gathering and holding data about individual initiatives. These data were then analyzed with a focus on the questions: “What are they doing? Why are there so many initiatives?”
A task-based model of the SCS was developed by going back and forth between data collection with the organizations identified and model design, reflecting a grounded theory approach (Corbin & Strauss, 2014). The missions, visions, and interviews produced some ways to classify initiatives in terms of the way they defined their goals and tasks. Recursive refinement and analysis of the data produced a taxonomy of five sets of activities that include all change initiative activity vis-à-vis integration of sustainability into the electricity system. These are seen as five subsystems that collectively form the global SCS for electricity, as summarized in Figure 2. These subsystems’ boundaries are based on (1) distinct change tasks identified through analysis of the change initiatives’ work and goals, (2) goals that require distinct competencies (e.g., policy writing in the policy subsystem, vs. technological research in the innovation subsystem), and (3) distinct roles and relationships for stakeholders (e.g., government has lead responsibility in the policy subsystem). Any one change initiative is usually active in more than one of these SCS subsystems:
The five change subsystems.
Policy change subsystem: This is the policy-making system of governmental bodies, including regulators and legislators at the local, national, regional, and global levels. At the global level, it is dominated by the United Nations and its agencies, the World Bank Group, the International Energy Agency, and the International Renewable Energy Agency. Other stakeholders engage in coproduction of rules and policies. For example, the Climate Action Network is particularly active in this subsystem as a global network of nongovernmental organizations lobbying for carbon-reducing policy.
Technology change subsystem: This subsystem produces new technologies and is the point of departure for the innovation system tradition. Its initiating leadership is researchers and research organizations; with prototyping it involves government agencies, NGOs, and companies that are developing new technologies and innovations. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative has numerous interorganizational projects to develop new technologies. Scaling of innovations is part of the service provider change subsystem (below), the distinction being that different stakeholders and competencies are then engaged.
Finance change subsystem: This subsystem is about innovating and influencing financial markets and tools to enhance the flow of capital to sustainable electricity production. This includes both public and private sector capital. The World Bank, for example, is prototyping financial products such as green bonds and the Carbon Disclosure Project aims to influence investment patterns by tracking and publicizing carbon emissions risk of companies and cities.
Service provider change subsystem: This refers to the infrastructure that generates, transmits, and distributes electricity. Historically it would be closely equated with “electric utilities,” both public and private. However, technological innovations imply significant disruption in this subsystem, with decentralized generation. Leading change initiatives include networks of utilities, such as the Global Sustainable Electricity Partnership and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Electricity Utilities Project.
Consumer change subsystem: This change subsystem is about demand for electricity and how it is used, how to influence it and consumers’ changing role in the emerging service provider system. This subsystem also connects to cultural beliefs and routines. Strategically it is useful to divide it into industrial, commercial, and residential consumers. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol and Caring for Climate are examples of global initiatives aiming to influence industrial and commercial demand; EKO focuses more on residential.
This five subsystem model gives rise to the important question: what holds them all together? Shared overarching goals, vision, and principles/values are commonly core binding mechanisms in multistakeholder collaborations (Gray, 1989) and certainly have important roles. This model suggests that creating some sort of stewarding mechanism for the subsystems to effectively interact could be critical to the effectiveness of efforts. It can be seen as relevant to the role of SE4All, which refers to “four enabling Action Areas (that) characterize cross-cutting mechanisms designed to support effective sectoral action and address existing obstacles. They include: Energy Planning & Policies; Business Model & Technology Innovation; Finance & Risk Management; Capacity Building & Knowledge Sharing” (SE4All 2014). The first three of these are analogous to the Policy, Service Provider, and Finance subsystems; the last is presented in this article’s model as a function; missing is the Consumption Change Subsystem.
The theoretical perspective presented here is that each of the five subsystems must address each of the seven functions, in order to be an effective system. In some subsystems a particular function might be more important or challenging, but they must all be addressed. For example, there is need for prototyping legislation and regulation, new technologies, new financial instruments, new service provision (business) models, and new types of roles for consumers. As well, at a particular moment in a change system’s development a particular function might be of more importance. For example, the Kyoto Process identified problems in creating a shared vision illustrated by the developed-developing countries and other divides.
Seven Change System Functions
As described already, seven functions have been identified as important for an effective change system. Application to global electricity change initiatives produces some quite clear illustrations of the functions in operations:
Visioning: SE4All is playing a preeminent system-wide role in this. It is creating a much broader vision than the climate change one associated with the Kyoto Process by including issues of access. It is creating coherence among Intergovernmental Organization; the World Bank, for example, has categorically adopted the SE4All goals as its own. However, every change initiative has its own particular focus that is the basis for its work and is critical for it to mobilize action. The Electricity Governance Initiative, for example, holds a vision of an electricity sector that is transparent, inclusive, and has accountable decision making. Issues of effectiveness raise the question about whether the individual visions are sufficiently aligned with the broad change system one and the individual subsystem ones.
Organizing: The change system requires organizing of effort and stakeholders in ways that provide coherent aggregation of voice into scale in order to be heard. The change initiatives themselves represent system organizing for their participants. This is obviously true for this study’s population boundary of change initiatives that are collaborations and networks of organizations. Each has brought numerous organizations together to play the particular function. The trade associations for renewables such as the Global Solar Alliance, play a key role in organizing voice and effort of their emerging industry. However, organizing is also a significant challenge for change initiatives within an organization such as a utility to play a role in a network. Consumers are probably the most underorganized stakeholder, even though they have a critical role in the arising “pro-sumer” world (Smart Grid Insights, 2014).
Resourcing: Provision of financial and personnel resources is something that is foundational for any of the change initiatives to be able to play their roles individually and collectively. For the study population of networks, resources typically are provided by participants in change initiatives; in some cases, particularly for NGOs and research work, this is supplemented by government or foundation funding. The development banks are big funders in the policy and service provider subsystems. Climateworks is a collaboration of foundations funding change globally.
Learning: This is an absolutely critical function to address complex change challenges, which require new ways of thinking about issues and taking action. Mindsets and capacities are key issues at the individual, organizational, and system levels. The change initiatives are generally not only involved in more mundane, but also critical, learning challenges about development and exchange of knowledge arising from prototyping. For example, REN21 provides a preeminent multistakeholder network for collective knowledge products. The World Energy Council is a multistakeholder network that focuses on creating events, exchanges, and publications to realize an affordable, stable, and environmentally sensitive energy system for the greatest benefit of all.
Measuring: Many different measures are needed for different aspects. Policy making requires a distinct array of measures, such as those developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on national level carbon emissions. Both the policy and consumption subsystems depend on standards-setting measures such as those produced by Collaborative Labeling & Appliance Standards Program.
Advocating: A change system requires a dynamic that provides pressure and energy for change. The Principles for Responsible Investment, and the Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change and its members such as CERES, are good examples of advocating within the finance community; the Climate Action Network has had an important advocating role in the UNFCCC processes.
Prototyping: This could be considered part of the learning function, but it is so critical to change that it is separated out as its own function. It is usually associated with new technologies, such as is being developed with the MIT Energy Initiative. However, actually testing new ways of organizing, new policies, new financial products, and ideas to influence consumption are important as well. The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership focuses on prototyping both new technologies and financing approaches.
Change Profiles
Initiatives’ programs and activities were coded for subsystem function. This produced a “change profile” data framework for individual change initiatives. These Profiles consist of one table for each of the five subsystems, which describes a change initiative’s role in the subsystem by function. Change initiatives are active in more than one subsystem and more than one function. An illustration of the World Bank in the Policy Subsystem is presented in Table 2 with core activities highlighted in gray. An analysis of relevant World Bank documents was validated in interview with Bank employees by reviewing with staff their programs and reaching agreement in the way they were categorized. The Bank’s profiles clarified that its core work is in the Policy, Finance, and Service Provision subsystems, with particular functions as Table 2 illustrates for the policy subsystem.
Change Profile for the World Bank Policy Subsystem.
Systemic Change Matrix
Testing if the approach discussed is comprehensible with modest effort and spurs useful and operational insights occurred in a 1-1/2 day meeting of the project team and six change initiative leaders. After introducing the change initiatives at the meeting and the core concepts, the change initiative participants were asked to fill in their own change profiles. They then wrote the information from each cell on post-it notes and put all these pieces on a wall with a table that is called the Systemic Change Matrix (SCM); some programs were in more than one cell. This is a way to map the SCS (see Table 3).
The System Change Matrix (SCM).
Some of the SCM cells had several activities from several change initiatives, while others were sparsely inhabited and some were bare. Of course this was only a partial view of the change system since few initiatives were represented. However, the exercise raised questions for participants about overall coherence and convergence. In particular, it raised questions about gaps in necessary activity and the quality of initiatives’ strategic focus. It also raised questions about overlaps, redundancies and coordination within cells, while recognizing that most cells required action by several change initiatives. For example:
Policy-measuring cell: The IPCC, the UNFCCC, ICLEI, and the World Bank are all involved deeply in policy-oriented measuring. Are there policy measures comprehensive? Sufficiently standardized? Is there duplicative effort? Can increased coordination produce significant benefit?
Consumption-advocacy cell: RE100 and the World Futures Council are both developing global networks and campaigns in this cell; they were unaware of this previous to the meeting. They should look for synergies, collaboration, and coordination.
As well as these specific concerns, the participants expressed excitement that the matrix provided them with a tool to identify which change initiatives, from among the plethora of acronyms, they should focus on in their work; they were able to overcome a sense of being lost at sea. Participants demonstrated that the model is (1) comprehensible with modest commitment, (2) provides a good way to develop a valid comprehensive representation for them of reality, (3) holds potential strategic insights, and (4) warrants further development.
Note: The more specific content of the data is the topic of another article and is beyond the scope of this one; this one aims to simply present the resulting methodology.
Discussion
Developing effective SCSs is critical to respond to wicked problems. Their development and the methodology described here reflect Loorbach’s call for systemic innovation: “approaches, theoretically and practically, that seek to create conditions favorable to the co-evolutionary development of new ways of thinking, organizing and practicing around a (technological or other) alternative” (Loorbach, 2014, p. 40). This co-evolutionary dynamic is inherent in wicked problems, as a complexity of relationships between individuals and organizations continually changes, new opportunities emerge that can even redefine a challenge, and continual experimentation is taking place to develop ranges of useful and appropriate responses to an issue. Distinguishing between change systems and production systems with respect to wicked problems creates a framework for developing comprehensive large systems change responses where technology takes an appropriate role among other key factors.
Although systems thinking and strategies are recognized as particularly important for wicked problems such as realizing SE4All’s goals, a core challenge is to find methodologies and tools that can develop systems understanding and produce operationalizable insights (Loorbach, 2007; Senge et al., 1999; Senge, Ross, Smith, Roberts, & Kleiner 1994; Waddell, McLachlan, Meszoely, & Waddock, 2015). To this end, a wide variety of mapping tools have been developed such as social network analysis (Borgatti & Foster, 2003; Krebs & Holley, 2004; Sharma, 2011), value network analysis (Allee, 2008), mapping for clarity (Ritchie-Dunham & Puente, 2008; Ritichie-Dunham & Rabbino, 2001), web crawls (Rogers 2009, 2010), and system dynamics analysis (Bar-Yam, 2003; Forrester 1971; Sterman, 2000). Each has its particular value (Waddell, 2011, 2016).
Through the SCM mapping exercise, participants easily grasped the concept of a change system and identified questions about how their own change initiatives’ actions could be strengthened by thinking systemically. They also identified the need to develop a willingness among change initiatives to interact differently to realize this benefit, which is a common insight arising from systems mapping (Senge, Lichtenstein, Kaeufer, Bradbury, & Carroll, 2007; van Tulder & Pfisterer, 2013; Waddell, 2005). The general direction is a shift in accountability from simply the goals of a change initiative, to the priority needs of the change system as well.
This article presents a methodology for developing effective SCSs, with the SCM being a valuable tool. The steps in the methodology are summarized in Table 4. Specific methods are identified including ones referenced in this article, but others are also available. Although the project behind this article ended with the meeting of change system participants, two further steps would be obvious. One is to implement action to strengthen the SCS and initiatives’ change efforts: This may involve experiments on how to do something not previously done, piloting tentative answers arising out of experiments, and/or simply implementing actions if a solution is readily apparent. These actions to address SCS gaps, realize potential synergies of effort, and to address unproductive competition and conflict would be greatly enhanced if they were categorically accompanied by a learning agenda about how to do this. Undertaking this as action learning would provide disciplined implementation, capacity development and identification of lessons to integrate into next steps and with others facing similar challenges (Coghlan & Coughlan, 2011; Morgan & Ramirez, 1983).
The SCS Methodology.
Conventional research required in the first two steps should be combined with engagement of SCS members in subsequent steps in an action research process: one characterized by collective ownership of the SCS members and researchers to ensure the work is relevant and understood (Bradbury, 2015). The usefulness of the methodology will depend on the conversations and actions it provokes. SCS members should do the analysis to build their understanding and provide insights for action from a deeply informed perspective. This emphasizes the importance of treating the steps as the basis for a riff in conjunction with other methods such as ones in developing meetings, action planning, and implementing. Particularly in action implementation, other methods supporting large systems change are required such as other systemic visualization tools, dialogic ones such as appreciative inquiry, social innovation labs, and diagnostic approaches such as cognitive and collective intelligence ones. Large systems change challenges require development and use of a suite of tools and methods.
Table 4 provides the basis for greatly sharpening, refining, and improving the activity described above. For example, the meeting of SCS members was handicapped by lack of clarity of what could be produced by their presence; a much clearer value proposition can now be made that describes how their participation can greatly strengthen their change efforts. As well, the meeting can be designed categorically around identification of actions to strengthen the SCS, rather than validating it as an approach and discovering how to explain the matrix.
A new type of agent is needed to support development of an SCS and the basic shift from an almost mono-focus of change initiatives on only their own goals, to the needs of the broader SCS and how they can contribute to its needs. As well as experts and SCS members, Table 4 identifies a critical role for SCS Stewards, a role associated with organizations like SE4All. Introducing the SCS as a framework has great potential to sharpen the work of such entities. Currently, SE4All is focused on “thematic issues” such as energy efficiency as its core organizing framework. The analysis suggests value in it:
Framing the work as stewarding the development of the SCS: This clearly moves the work from involvement in any way in technology and the production system, to focus entirely on relationships and flows within the SCS in ways that reflect complex system logics of self-organizing, emergence, directional nudges, learning, and experimentation.
Organizing activities around subsystems that are identified abductively: For SE4All this would mean creating five core activities around the five subsystems. Although other historic work suggests the seven functions are the same for any SCS issue, the subsystems may be different and will require definition.
Creating ongoing analysis of the health of the SCS and stuck points: These analyses can help identify high leverage points to support coherence to guide action; for example, they may identify a specific SCM cell (e.g., consumption-resourcing) or function (e.g., advocating) that needs attention and action can be taken which brings together those working on the stuck points to free them up.
Accessing and developing competencies in large systems change: Framing the challenge as a change one brings the need for change competencies to the fore. This includes such things as high competency in scenario development, generative, participatory, and other meeting processes, conflict resolution, social media, mapping, and big data management.
In undertaking this work, an SCS Steward can also bring attention to shifting priorities and structures of the SCS subsystems. Discussion at the meeting of electricity SCS leaders pointed out that the subsystems boundaries are changing with respect to the distinctions between consumers and service providers that the model had to take into account. The change system focus brought up the overarching issue of the traditional production system being resistant to change for a variety of reasons, and that resilience and adaptive capacity (i.e., ongoing change capacity) are key qualities that the change subsystems must encourage the production system to develop. The SCS framework also raised questions about how the systems change approach can deal with the issues of power in its many forms that a SCS Steward should help to address; this is often a source of “stuckness” that usually demands collective action by change proponents. An additional question is about the role of stakeholders in each cell—is the array and number of stakeholders necessary sufficiently engaged for the cell to be effectively developed?
These questions about generation of coherence and convergence lead to discussion by meeting participants about the next actions for development of the SCM as a SCS tool. In that meeting, the entire SCM at the global level was the focus. However, some other categories for action emerged where the SCM and parts of it could be used to support coherence and convergence:
By geography: Regional, national, and subnational jurisdictions and ecoregions can be the basis for applying the analysis to improve change efforts. Given the national level is critical for electricity system change, it appears a particularly appropriate level of focus.
By subsystems: Looking across the functions of a subsystem could help deepen success of a particular subsystem.
By change initiative: Participants saw value in applying the SCM to their own activities to sharpen their own strategy and priorities.
By change project or technology: Issues surrounding a particular activity such as a cross-boundary transmission line or adoption of a decentralized energy grid could benefit from the SCM approach.
By cell(s) within the SCM: There could be value in taking on a particular function within or across one or more subsystems. For example, who is doing measuring in the public policy and finance subsystems? Collectively are the measuring activities comprehensive? Are their issues of integration and comparability?
The division into cells is best used to clarify roles and identify key leverage points for action. The SCM should also be tested with issues in addition to sustainable energy, since there is good reason to believe that the change subsystems are not generic. As well, different issues and at different moments in a change challenges’ life, different subsystems or even cells would be likely more demanding of attention. Additionally, the SCM has potential to be used across scales, which would make it useful for those looking at change challenges globally as well as more locally.
While these SCM divisions can be useful, it is important not to forget that the power of SCS and accompanying methodology must be considered as a whole; taking a part of it and focusing just on that part’s performance will do little to strengthen the system as a whole.
Conclusions
Developing SCSs in the tradition of complex adaptive systems is a powerful concept to address wicked problems. SCSs reflect the distinction that Geels makes between “innovation system approaches” and “system innovation” (Geels, 2013). Calling for change systems development is very aligned with numerous calls to focus on the development of resilience and adaptive capacity as a response to climate change and uncertain futures (Benson & Garmestani, 2013; Berkes, Colding, & Folke, 2002; Folke, Hahn, Olsson, & Norberg, 2005). This article builds on some insights from that tradition but reframes the focus as development of a SCS to address significant challenges of coherence and convergence among change efforts.
A methodology for developing powerful SCSs consists of six steps to describe the SCS, identify actions in response to the resulting insights, and implement those actions. These provide the basis for change leaders to understand their particular role in the SCS and enhance their contribution to its power to realize change. Change leaders must be able to “see” the system and their role in it, and there are various mapping methodologies to support this; a new one developed here especially for SCS is the societal change matrix. It shifts focus from a single change initiative’s effort to the needs of the SCS; it also shifts an individual change initiative’s sense of accountability to the priorities of the system and how a change initiative—given its particular resources, competencies and relationships—can best contribute to those priorities.
To support and realize the potential value of this shift also requires refinement—indeed, invention—of SCS Stewards. There is need for an agent with system legitimacy, power, and competency to nurture and, when appropriate, push change initiatives to address the SCS needs for a robust, coherent set of actions. The SCS Steward role is to create spaces, encounters, and supporting relationships between change initiatives to see and address gaps in effort, unproductive duplication and competition, and potential synergies. The opportunity and priority of these will shift as a SCS develops and the change matures. This is not about coordination; there are many too many change initiatives in any significant SCS for that. In Loorbach’s typology of four transition management activities, the role of SCS Stewards like SE4All is in strategic and reflexive activities, with support for tactical ones and little role in operational activities (Loorbach, 2010). The linear coordination of tactical and operational activity can arise out of SCS Steward interventions that support small groups of change initiatives to discover and implement new ways of acting, driven by not just their own initiatives’ goals but the priority needs of the SCS.
These ideas should be taken in the context of complementary work about action for large systems change (Waddell, 2016; Waddell, Waddock, et al., 2015), transition management (Loorbach 2010; Rotmans, Kemp, and van Asselt, 2001; Rotmans & Loorbach, 2009), and collaborative problem solving (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012; Gray, 1989; Kania & Kramer, 2011; Senge et al., 2007). In contrast to independent initiatives, projects, organizations, and institutions, developing change systems requires the development of bridging organizations, learning systems (Snyder & Wenger, 2004), and collaborative spaces and networks (Brown, 2015; Hassan, 2014; Tapscott, 2014; van Tulder & Pfisterer, 2013; Waddell, 2011; Westley, Goebey, & Robinson, 2012). These structures aim to support emergence of specific coordinated convergent action among change initiatives that share a task, but the focus of the SCS Steward is on the broader, looser goal of coherence.
Supporting emergence of an effective SCS is a task that requires long-term and substantial effort. In essence, SCSs already exist in any issue arena, but they are of various stages of development and lack identity. Rendering the SCS manifest and developing its identity through actions to create coherence and convergence hold promise to greatly improve the effectiveness of large systems change efforts. To this end, the SCM can be a valuable tool. However, the power of SCS Stewards and their associated concepts are still in early stages of validation and demonstration. They need to move to their own prototyping, and this requires enhancing the action research strategy to develop the work in collaboration with change system stakeholders, primarily the change initiatives.
Implications for Those Addressing Wicked Problems
To address wicked problems, hold central the concepts of Societal Change System development, coherence, and convergence.
With respect to any issue, an SCS already exists, represented by efforts to address the issue. Giving it consciousness and supporting its development are key tasks to address a wicked problem.
Develop SCS subsystems around the imperatives identified in your particular issue SCS.
Understand a SCS’s success is related to the ability to realize seven functions: visioning, organizing, resource mobilization, learning, measuring, advocating, and prototyping.
To advance an SCS’s development act in terms of the six-step methodology, draw on a range of methods, and undertake conventional and action research.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The research behind this working paper was supported by Amir Khorasani of the University of Manchester Business School, Anna Birney of Forum for the Future, and Joe Hsueh of SecondMuse.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author thanks ENEL Foundation for financial support through the project “Towards a New Sustainable Business Model for Energy Companies.”