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A living lab is a physical or virtual space in which to solve societal challenges, especially for urban areas, by bringing together various stakeholders for collaboration and collective ideation. Although the notion has received increasing attention from scholars, practitioners and policy makers, its essence remains unclear to many. We therefore performed a systematic literature review of a sample of 114 scholarly articles about living labs to understand the central facets discussed in the nascent literature. In particular, we explored the origin of the living lab concept and its key paradigms and characteristics, including stakeholder roles, contexts, challenges, main outcomes, and sustainability. While doing this, we discovered that the number of publications about living labs has increased significantly since 2015, and several journals are very active in publishing articles on the topic. The living lab is considered a multidisciplinary phenomenon and it encompasses various research domains despite typically being discussed under open and user innovation paradigms. What is more, the existing literature views living labs simultaneously as landscapes, real-life environments, and methodologies, and it suggests that they include heterogeneous stakeholders and apply various business models, methods, tools and approaches. Finally, living labs face some challenges, such as temporality, governance, efficiency, user recruitment, sustainability, scalability and unpredictable outcomes. In contrast, the benefits include tangible and intangible innovation and a broader diversity of innovation. Based on our analysis, we provide some implications and suggestions for future research.

Poland aims at stimulating the market to reach a target of 50,000 plug-in and battery electric vehicles by 2020. However, as in other Eastern European countries, the market penetration stays very low. In Poland, there were only 475 battery electric vehicles and 514 plug-in electric vehicles registered in 2017. To identify effective support measures, this paper examines the preferences of Polish consumers for three types of electric vehicles: battery, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid vehicles. We use a discrete choice experiment to estimate the willingness to pay of a representative sample of consumers intending to buy a car in Poland. We find that electric vehicles are significantly less preferred than conventional cars, even under a public programme that would enable slow-mode charging in places where respondents usually park. We quantify the marginal willingness to pay for increasing the driving range, reductions in charging time, the availability of fast-mode charging stations, and the provision of policy incentives. The novelty of the paper lies in presenting a scenario with the slow-mode and availability of several levels of fast-mode charging stations and examination of the extent to which the heterogeneity of consumer preferences is driven by place of residence (urban, suburban, rural), intention to buy a new versus a used car, and the annual mileage. This is also the first discrete choice experiment on electric vehicles conducted in Eastern Europe. To stimulate the electric vehicle market, we recommend a pricing policy that affects the operating costs and other incentives along with an effective up-front price incentive scheme.

AbstractDespite the recent interest in the Industry 4.0 applications for sustainability, little is known on the processes through which digital transformation and Industry 4.0 technologies enable sustainable innovation in manufacturing. The present study addresses this knowledge gap by developing a strategic roadmap that explains how businesses can leverage Industry 4.0 technologies to introduce sustainability into innovative practices. For this purpose, the study conducts a systematic review of extant literature to identify Industry 4.0 functions for sustainable innovation and applies interpretive structural modeling to devise the promised roadmap. The results offer interesting insights into Industry 4.0 applications for sustainable innovation. The strategic roadmap developed reveals that Industry 4.0 enables sustainable innovation through 11 functions. Industry 4.0 and the underlying digital technologies and principles allow businesses to improve interfunctional collaboration and better integrate with internal and external stakeholders. Industry 4.0 further improves the knowledge base and advanced manufacturing competency and promotes organizational capabilities valuable to sustainable innovation such as green absorptive capacity, sustainable partnership, and sustainable innovation orientation. Through these functions, Industry 4.0 subsequently enhances green process innovation capacity and the ability to develop or reintroduce eco‐friendly products economically and competitively. Overall, the roadmap explains the complex precedence relationships among the 11 sustainable innovation functions of Industry 4.0, offering important implications for businesses that seek to leverage Industry 4.0 sustainability implications and manage sustainable development.

Transforming the energy system to one with a greater importance of renewables requires redirecting and accelerating technological change. In this transition, so-called policy mixes play a crucial role. Yet precisely how policy mixes affect technological innovation remains poorly understood. To remedy this, in this study we choose a qualitative company case study approach to analyze the innovation impact of a comprehensive policy mix, taking offshore wind in Germany as research case. We find that the feed-in tariff level and the perceived consistency and credibility of the German offshore wind policy mix have been vital innovation drivers. Specifically, the consistent and stable policy strategy with its long-term targets, and the consistency of the instrument mix with this policy strategy appear crucial to RD&D. In contrast, adoption decisions depend on a comprehensive and consistent instrument mix. Finally, a high level of credibility can partly offset negative effects of inconsistencies in the mix.

Abstract This article reconstructs the transformation of the Greek energy system during the past hundred years, with a special focus on the dynamics of the country's foreign energy dependencies. The years after World War II saw the rise of domestic lignite and, to a lesser extent, hydropower as the most important energy sources in the country's electrical system, while at the same time the state took a firm grip of energy sector through the establishment of the Public Electricity Company (PPC). We reconstruct how state actors as well as corporate stakeholders organized policies and legitimized energy technologies in search of energy autarky and security while at the same time the energy system – especially in oil and gas – became strongly dependent on imports. Later on natural gas was introduced, being imported mainly from the USSR and Algeria, for substituting highly polluting (imported) oil- and (domestic) lignite-based electricity plants. In recent years gas has offered a new opportunity for Greece to establish itself as a hub in a wider international transmission system. The paper argues that Greek actors defined and redefined energy sources and technologies in relation to political priorities, regimes of competition and broader societal pressures in a way that had a deep impact on Greece's energy import dependence.

PurposeThere has been little explicit consideration of do‐it‐yourself (DIY) in previous manufacturing literature. This may be because traditional DIY is an outlet for physical goods that are made‐to‐forecast, such as boats kits for self‐assembly and personal use. However, since the beginning of the twenty‐first century, DIY has extended to the invention and the sale of physical goods, as well as their assembly and use. The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to the manufacturing literature by providing an analysis of DIY invention and production of physical goods for use or sale (new‐DIY paradigm).Design/methodology/approachLiterature review related to DIY invention and production of physical goods for use or sale; and its differences with the existing paradigm for creating physical goods: including enabling technologies and enabling thinking.FindingsDIY invention and production is able to create physical goods, which are both original and economical, through open, distributed, minimal processes. Within the existing paradigm, by contrast, physical goods are created, which are either original or economical, through processes that are less open, less distributed, and less minimal than the processes of new‐DIY.Practical implicationsDIY invention, production, and sale of physical goods deploys technologies that are used within the existing paradigm for creating physical goods. The difference in outcomes is due to the different conceptualization of invention, production, and sales within the established paradigm.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper is that it provides an analysis of key aspects of DIY invention, production, and sales. The value of the paper is that it provides a starting point for researchers and practitioners seeking to determine how practices, technologies, and challenges of the existing paradigm can be related to DIY opportunities.

In this paper, we present a simplistic dynamic model to analyze the tradeoff between the use of environment-friendly energy and the use of environment-polluting energy in a dynamic world characterized by players that have different interests. Our approach builds upon a neoclassical growth model, integrating different economies, and including pollution as a separate growth factor. The model is cast in a differential game framework with the open-loop information structure. In this setting, we analyze the impact of pollution over time on the fossil fuel/“green” energy ratio. Furthermore, based on a simulation study for the linearized model, we consider the question whether certain cooperative arrangements between countries having different interests can be expected in case pollution shocks occur.