The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3A2bdf60ac-ad83-46be-afa3-fa5130e04118/datastream/OBJ/download

The Circular Economy – A new sustainability paradigm?

A literature and practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes

Human beings are described by many spiritual traditions as ‘blind’ or ‘asleep’ or ‘in a dream.’ These terms refers to the limited attenuated state of consciousness of most human beings caught up in patterns of conditioned thought, feeling and perception, which prevent the development of our latent, higher spiritual possibilities. In the words of Idries Shah: “Man, like a sleepwalker who suddenly ‘comes to’ on some lonely road has in general no correct idea as to his origins or his destiny.” In some religious traditions, such as Christianity and Islam, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness. Other traditions use similar metaphors to describe the spiritual condition of humanity:

The Human Condition.

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Sustainable innovation, business models and economic performance: an overview

http://www.transitiepraktijk.nl/files/2006%20Past%20and%20future%20of%20backcasting%20The%20shift%20to%20stakeholder%20participations%20Vergragt.pdf

Past and future of backcasting: The shift to stakeholder participation and a proposal for a methodological framework

https://cristalgrundtvig.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/sciencebackcasting.pdf

Backcasting for sustainability: Introduction to the special issue

https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3A91140c90-9726-4a1a-bcac-0171df833128/datastream/OBJ/download

Circular Economy in the building sector: Three cases and a collaboration tool

"Backcasting for a sustainable future: the impact after 10 years" is the first book that systematically investigates the follow-up and spin-off of various participatory backcasting experiments seven to ten years after completion. Backcasting literally means looking back from a desirable future that is constructed first. Since the 1990s sustainable futures and system innovations towards sustainability have been explored in participatory backcasting experiments, numerous stakeholders have been involved and first steps have been planned in line with the envisioned sustainable futures. A methodological framework for participatory backcasting is developed, as well as a conceptual framework. The latter uses various concepts and theories from Leitbilder or future visions, actor learning, stakeholder participation, as well as industrial network theory and institutional theory. Three case studies from the Netherlands are described, each consisting of a backcasting experiment and its follow-up and spin-off after ten years: (1) Novel Protein Foods and meat alternatives; (2) Sustainable Households and Nutrition; and (3) Multiple Sustainable Land-use in rural areas. The cases show that participatory backcasting may, but does not automatically lead to substantial follow-up and spin-off at the level of niches or sets of related niches in the research, business, government and public domains. Various factors are identified that affect the emergence and the extent of follow-up and spin-off; these factors can be both internal and external to the backcasting experiment. Follow-up and spin-off are constituted by networks of actors that have been successful in mobilising sufficient resources for establishing the activities. Future visions from the backcasting experiment provide guidance and orientation to follow-up and spin-off in a decentralised way; they show both stability and flexibility during the emergence of follow-up and spin-off, and are influenced by dynamics like exits and entries in the supporting networks

/pdf/backcasting-for-a-sustainable-future-the-impact-after-10-3by8tujsfp.pdf

Jaco Quist

Papers

Sustainable innovation, business models and economic performance: an overview

Past and future of backcasting: The shift to stakeholder participation and a proposal for a methodological framework

Backcasting for sustainability: Introduction to the special issue

Circular Economy in the building sector: Three cases and a collaboration tool

Backcasting for a Sustainable Future: The Impact After 10 Years