Webster University Vienna

About: Webster University Vienna is a education organization based out in Vienna, Austria. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Monetary policy & Expatriate. The organization has 60 authors who have published 168 publications receiving 3182 citations.

Integrating techno-economic, socio-technical and political perspectives on national energy transitions: A meta-theoretical framework

Abstract: Economic development, technological innovation, and policy change are especially prominent factors shaping energy transitions. Therefore explaining energy transitions requires combining insights from disciplines investigating these factors. The existing literature is not consistent in identifying these disciplines nor proposing how they can be combined. We conceptualize national energy transitions as a co-evolution of three types of systems: energy flows and markets, energy technologies, and energy-related policies. The focus on the three types of systems gives rise to three perspectives on national energy transitions: techno-economic with its roots in energy systems analysis and various domains of economics; socio-technical with its roots in sociology of technology, STS, and evolutionary economics; and political with its roots in political science. We use the three perspectives as an organizing principle to propose a meta-theoretical framework for analyzing national energy transitions. Following Elinor Ostrom's approach, the proposed framework explains national energy transitions through a nested conceptual map of variables and theories. In comparison with the existing meta-theoretical literature, the three perspectives framework elevates the role of political science since policies are likely to be increasingly prominent in shaping 21st century energy transitions.

Organizations and Risk in Late Modernity

Abstract: Risk is an important but under-investigated feature of organizations in Late Modernity. This paper introduces the Special Issue on Organizations and Risk in Late Modernity. The rationale for the special issue is discussed. An overview of important approaches to risk research and organizations is provided to frame the special issue. These approaches include the cognitive science approach, which takes a positivist perspective and assumes that risks are objective and knowable. This view is contrasted with socio-cultural theories based in work by Mary Douglas, Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Michel Foucault. Charles Perrow's organizational theory of the production of risk and accidents due to interactive complexity, and Karl Weick's theory of risk sensemaking, are then discussed. The paper then reviews the contributions of papers in the special issue and outlines issues for future research on risk and organizations.