The diffusion of a policy innovation in the energy sector: evidence from the collective switching case in Europe

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the heterogeneity of ways through which a policy innovation affects the structure and the complex interactions taking place within a business ecosystem and how different business ecosystems react differently to a policy innovation, given their structural and behavioural characteristics. The paper focuses on a specific policy innovation, namely the collective switching. We performed a cross-country analysis using the 6C framework as a tool for identifying differences in the structure and behaviours of energy business ecosystems after the introduction of collective switching. We examined in rich detail 11 European countries’ collective switching campaigns, and provide an accurate description of the transformations of their energy business ecosystems. Semi-structured interviews, conducted with consumer associations that organised collective switching campaigns, provide insights for the definition of some policy interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Business ecosystem
• policy innovation
• collective switching
• energy sector
• Europe

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Q40
• O35
• O52
• O57

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of all the representatives of the consumer associations and of BEUC that kindly agreed on being interviewed and helped us on collecting data. We wish to thank also the reviewers and the editor for their useful comments, which heavily contributed to improve the quality of the work. Finally, we thank Fulvio Fontini for comments on the manuscript. Silvia Blasi acknowledges the Grant on Economics of Energy Markets from Centro per l'Economia e Tecnica dell'Energia “Levi Cases”, University of Padova.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ BEUC brings together 43 European consumer organisations from 32 countries (EU, EEA and applicant countries).

² PrizeWise, Inc. operates a website that retails coupons and allows its users to participate in an online trading platform. The company sells coupons and offers with an option offered to purchasers to receive free tickets to enter sweepstakes contests on the website.

³ Rong et al. (2015) included in this group also the construct element. In our case, we decided not to include it because it is the same for all countries.