The Paths of Clean Technology: From Innovation to Commercialization

• Author / Creator

  Sharifian, Manely

• My dissertation aims to contribute to multi-level studies of institutions, as well as the social construction of technologies. It consists of three papers. In Paper 1, I demonstrate the evolution of three renewable technologies (solar, wind, and biofuel) from their creation to the present day. Combining institutional theory and innovation process literature, I show how the institutionalization of renewable technologies has partially failed, despite their benefits for the natural environment. While there have been many inventions in the renewable field, they were often challenged during the development and implementation processes. The challenges moved from technical barriers in the earlier periods to political barriers in recent time.
  In Paper 2, I demonstrate how the tension between two societal-level logics, neo-liberalism and environmentalism, influences the rate, diversity, and direction of political and technological innovations in the renewable field. I argue that the tension reduces the rate of innovation, but increases its diversity because it creates more discussions among actors. I test my arguments on 93 nations over a 33-year period, from 1980 to 2012.
  In Paper 3, I argue how an organization’s green identity and image influence the attraction of financial capital among the clean technology firms. I build a multi-level identity construct and test my arguments between different industry cultures (renewables versus non-renewables) and with different audience (green investors versus non-green investors). I argue that a firm’s green identity has a positive effect on the acquisition of resources at a decreasing rate, while a firm’s green image has a negative effect on the acquisition of resources because firms are penalized for greenwashing the public. I test my arguments on a random global sample of 120 clean technology firms.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Clean Technology

• Graduation date

  Fall 2015

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3833N63H

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.