Public clients creating lead markets for innovation towards sustainability transitions
Market-shaping in the Swedish construction sector
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16928795 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Per Erik Eriksson (0000-0002-1746-2637, Luleå University of Technology, corresponding author), Johan Larsson (0000-0002-7322-9346, Luleå University of Technology), Erika Hedgren (Luleå University of Technology), Cecilia Christopher (Luleå University of Technology) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Pages | 101046 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2210-4224 • E-ISSN: 2210-4232 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.eist.2025.101046 |
| OpenAlex | W4414039117 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 43 |
Public demand is emphasized as a major driving force for environmental innovation addressing societal transitions. In 2007, the European Commission adopted the ‘lead market initiative’ to tackle grand societal challenges across several industrial sectors, of which construction has the greatest sustainability impact. To study how public clients can create lead markets for environmental innovation in construction, we build on recent advancements emphasizing market-shaping strategies as critical for societal transitions. The paper investigates how public construction clients proactively use and combine market-shaping strategies to create lead markets for environmental innovations. Our empirical findings, from a multiple-case study of three public construction clients in Sweden, illustrate how the clients use and combine a broad range of market-shaping strategies related to seven groups of lead market advantages. We contribute to theory by cross-fertilizing market-shaping and lead market literatures and showing how market-shaping strategies interplay in achieving combinatory effects, which incentivize creation of lead markets for environmental innovation towards sustainability transitions
Business · Economics · Lead (geology) · Market economy · Sustainability · Public Procurement and Policy · Public-Private Partnership Projects · Sustainable Supply Chain Management
Using the Gioia Methodology in international business and entrepreneurship research
Public service innovation
Public procurement, innovation and industrial policy
Lead Users
Public procurement and innovation—Resurrecting the demand side
Seeking Qualitative Rigor in Inductive Research
Lead markets and regulation
Using thematic analysis in psychology
The development of a typology and guideline for selecting innovation-encouraging procurement strategies in civil engineering
Contemporary financial capitalism and sustainability transitions in urban built environments
Using lead market factors to assess the potential for a sustainability transition
Conceptualizing market formation for transformative policy
The role of governments in uncertainty orchestration in market formation for sustainability transitions
Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |