Conferences as Sequential Arenas for Creating New Sustainable Fields

Abstract

The field-configuring events (FCE) literature has deemed conferences to be important in the emergence of fields. Yet little is still known about how they serve as interventions for deliberately creating new sustainable fields. Emerging sustainable technologies are typically not competitive on the market and are likely to be ruled out by established industries counteracting their development. Hence, they are in need of two types of measures: those that promote the single innovation and measures that generate “disruptive” systemic change (i.e. bring about a transition toward increased sustainability in the technologies, rules and roles that govern established industries). The article applies the FCE literature to a novel empirical context: the creation of a field for solar technology in an especially challenging environment. Based on observations, interviews and archival data on a conference sequence in 2011–2014, the findings show that the conferences triggered processes promoting the innovation that, then, generated steppingstones for processes of “disruptive” systemic change. The study contributes to the FCE literature by arguing that conferences can be fruitful arenas for furthering sustainable fields, as they have the potential to address the two aspects of sustainable field creation simultaneously.

Keywords::

• Conference sequence
• field-configuring event
• organizational field
• sustainable niche
• sustainability transition
• solar technology

JEL Classification::

• L69
• L59
• O3

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the guest editor Prof. Elke Schüßler for their dedicated comments on earlier versions of this article. Also, my warmest thanks go to Prof. Raimo Lovio for enabling this research as well as Prof. Eva Heiskanen and Prof. Nina Granqvist for their valuable academic insights concerning my work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Foundation for Economic Education [grant number 4-2507] and Walter Ahlström Foundation.