Measuring the alignment of perspectives of organizations in a socio-technical system: The case of the introduction of the electric vehicle in the Netherlands

Abstract

System innovations occur through the interplay of a large number of organizations. Because different organizations may have different perspectives and goals, a misalignment of perspectives could occur which may hold back the development process. In this explorative study a method has been developed for measuring the alignment of perspectives on a specific technology. In this study the introduction and development of the electric vehicle has been chosen as the object of study, because previous studies have suggested that there are a number of different perspectives on electric vehicles among the participating organizations. The results of this study show, based on the data that has been gathered using questionnaires, that there are three methods of measuring alignment in a socio technical system. The first method is using the standard deviation of the scores from all of the respondents in the dataset as an indicator for alignment on each topic. The second method uses a Kruskall-Wallis test to test if categories of organizations have a different perspective on a topic. The third method is testing if categories of organizations have a significantly high level of no-response on a specific topic, which could suggest that there is some form of knowledge-base misalignment. When looking at the case of the electric vehicle in the Netherlands, the study shows that efforts should focus on the artifact (the electric vehicle), the fuel infrastructure, the production system/industry development, the market development/user practices and the regulations/policies. The study also suggests which categories of organizations represent perspectives that are the furthest apart on a specific area of interest.