Climate governance entrepreneurship: Emerging findings and a new research agenda

Abstract

This is an introductory paper to a special issue on climate governance entrepreneurship, where entrepreneurship is understood as acts performed by actors seeking to ‘punch above their weight’. By contrast, actors who are merely doing their job are not ‘entrepreneurs’. In order to understand climate policy and governance, we need to learn more about the factors that condition variance in entrepreneurial activity, strategies and success. In this introduction, we present a comprehensive review of the literature on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in policy in governance, with special attention to the recent upsurge in studies of climate governance entrepreneurship. We distinguish two types of entrepreneurship: (1) acts aimed at enhancing governance influence by altering the distribution of authority and information; and (2) acts aimed at altering or diffusing norms and cognitive frameworks, worldviews or institutional logics. The contributions in this special issue offer valuable insights into how personal motivations, policy windows, international trends, cultural-institutional traditions and the distribution of structural power influence entrepreneurship. However, more work is needed – not least as regards whether actors that seek change are more active and/or more successful as entrepreneurs compared to those that defend the status quo, and whether there is more successful entrepreneurship in public or in private arenas of governance.

The Strategizing of Policy Entrepreneurs towards the Global Alliance for Climate‐Smart Agriculture

“…Within the public policy literature several scholars focus on micro‐level processes, and particularly on the role of policy entrepreneurs. Whereas policy entrepreneurship has been mainly studied in relation to policies at the national level (Boasson and Huitema, ), we argue here that global collaborations are also likely to emerge as a result of policy entrepreneurs’ activities (Stone and Ladi, ). A few recent studies that have adopted Kingdon's multiple streams framework to explain the formation of collaborations, for example, point to the critical role of policy entrepreneurs in the process (see for instance, Cornforth et al., ; Lober ;Takahashi and Smutny, ).…”

The emergence of carbon disclosure: Exploring the role of governance entrepreneurs

“…5 Framing has been identified by the editors of this special issue as a key strategy of entrepreneurs that do not target authoritative decision-making but rather aim for normative change. Boasson and Huitema (2017) In 2017, shareholders of ExxonMobil have achieved, for the first time in history, a 62% majority in favor of a proposal calling on the company to assess and disclose how it is preparing its business for the transition to a low-carbon future (CERES, 2017). In a study from 2010 (CERES, 2010), the climate change proxy voting of 46 mutual funds in the US is analyzed and found to have grown from 14% votes in support in 2004 to nearly 27% in support in 2009.…”

“…The empirical illustrations provided here have substantiated the claim that carbon disclosure has developed into a mature organizational field via the four stages of the model, driven by a range of entrepreneurial activities. A particularly interesting observation in this regard is that entrepreneurship in the carbon disclosure field has predominantly employed the second strategy introduced by Boasson and Huitema in the introduction to this special issue: entrepreneurship by aiming at 'altering or diffusing norms and cognitive frameworks, worldviews or institutional logics' (Boasson and Huitema, 2017). Table 1 summarizes the dominant role of governance entrepreneurs in each stage.…”

“…In the introduction to this special issue, Boasson and Huitema (2017) introduce two key characteristics of entrepreneurship that help to determine whether or not an actor/ organization acts entrepreneurial. First, entrepreneurship includes acts that are targeted at 'enhancing governance influence by altering distribution of authority and information' (Boasson and Huitema, 2017).…”

“…First, entrepreneurship includes acts that are targeted at 'enhancing governance influence by altering distribution of authority and information' (Boasson and Huitema, 2017). And second, entrepreneurship includes acts 'aimed at altering or diffusing norms and cognitive frameworks, worldviews or institutional logics' (Boasson and Huitema, 2017).…”