Institutional Entrepreneurship in the Bioeconomy

Radical innovations aiming for sustainability usually need to transform existing institutions in order to become successful. From a transition perspective, institutional entrepreneurship is one of the core activities that niche actors should employ in order to induce disruptive change in the dominant socio-technical regime. The purpose of this paper is to explore how institutional entrepreneurship from an emerging bioeconomy unfolds in three different but interrelated industries. Our conceptual model shows how conditions, combined with the field actors’ characteristics, shape the pattern of institutional entrepreneurship. We identify specific combinations of discursive, relational and material forms in the chemical, plastic and construction material industries empirically based on in-depth interviews. Our findings lead to a generalised classification scheme for field conditions. The resulting impact on institutional entrepreneurship can be conducive, barricading or exhausting. With regard to strengthened effectiveness of policy mixes, results draw attention to those industry-specific conditions that shape institutional entrepreneurship.