Mediating value tensions in transitions: A valuation perspective on innovation systems

Transition studies, and technological innovation systems (TIS) more specifically, have remained rather implicit about how innovation trajectories are shaped by value concerns. Attention in literature has mostly been limited to innovating actors’ unambiguous goals of decarbonisation. In order to explicitly address a multitude of conflicting value concerns expressed in diverse contexts, we propose conceptual extensions to the TIS approach. Building on recent innovation systems and sociology literatures, we suggest that transitions are enabled by institutional structures; ‘valuation devices’, that mediate particular value concerns in a sectors’ selection environment. We elaborate on this approach using the case of a transition in the textile dyeing industry in Tiruppur, India’s largest exporting cluster for cotton garments. When confronted with local regulatory pressure against river pollution, Tiruppur’s dyeing industry actively engaged with a TIS around ‘zero liquid discharge’ (ZLD). Innovating actors’ active construction of valuation devices generated wider reorganisation of production processes in the industry, enabling them to position themselves as leaders in green textile processing in the national context. Methodologically, we apply process tracing to demonstrate that external regulatory pressure was at best, a necessary condition for the transition. The critical drivers of the transition, we argue, were proactive industry-internal innovation and valuation spanning across company, innovation system and industry levels.