Stories shaping the future: Circular economy as a multistakeholder innovation
Ida Parkkinen’s blog text on stakeholder relationships shaping innovation.
In my doctoral dissertation, I explored personalized medicine as an emerging multistakeholder innovation. What I found was not a linear path or a ready-made model, but a process that is unfinished, uncertain, and constantly evolving. This insight became the main argument of my dissertation: multistakeholder innovation is not a polished outcome, it’s a dynamic and relational effort to build something new together. It unfolds through interactions, negotiations, and shared meaning-making.
Innovation emerges in stakeholder relationships
Systemic innovation, as I studied it, unfolds through the dynamic interplay of multiple stakeholders. These diverse actors, such as policymakers, companies, researchers, and professionals, bring various expectations, values, and visions of the future. In my dissertation, I approached this complexity through the lens of multistakeholder innovation. I captured generative dynamics and polyphony as systemic innovation begins to take shape through a mosaic of fragmented and tentative stories that reflect hopes, concerns, and competing interpretations of emerging opportunities.
I used narrative analysis to understand how the early stories—what I call innovation sparks—form the foundation for future developments. These sparks are not yet coherent strategies or tangible outcomes. Instead, they are glimpses into how stakeholders imagine the future and how they begin to organize around shared goals and synergies, thus coming together to develop something new despite inevitable challenges, difficulties, and tensions.
Stakeholder relationships shape circular economy transformation
Circular economy is also a multistakeholder innovation. It requires collaboration across sectors, disciplines, and communities, bringing together diverse actors with different priorities and perspectives. It brings together multiple visions of the future; some complementary, others conflicting.
Circular economy initiatives are shaped by uncertainty, evolving relationships, and competing interpretations of value. This complexity is not a weakness; it is the dynamic that drives innovation forward. When actors engage across boundaries, they create opportunities for new synergies, even as they navigate tensions and challenges along the way.
Narrative approaches can be used to understand how actors perceive sustainability, what they expect from circular solutions, and how they negotiate shared futures. Stakeholders construct the future together, guided by their interpretations and value expectations. Recognizing this dynamic helps us appreciate the complexity of circular economy initiatives and the importance of future-oriented, adaptive collaboration.
Uncertainty as a catalyst for change
For those working within sustainability-focused settings, my research offers a reminder: the early stages of renewal matter. They are full of potential, and also ambiguity. In this context, uncertainty is not a barrier; it’s a space for creativity and co-creation. By paying attention to the stories we tell, the expectations we hold, and the relationships we build, we can better navigate the uncertain terrain of sustainability transitions.
Uncertainty defines our time. It shapes how we imagine the future, respond to societal challenges, and design solutions. I picture a shared map, still being drawn. Each stakeholder adds a piece; some sketching paths, others marking landmarks, some even erasing and redrawing routes. The map is incomplete, yet it guides us forward. And perhaps the most important part is not the destination, but the way we chart it together.
So, ask yourself: What future are we imagining together? Whose voices shape that vision? How can we make space for multiple interpretations and evolving values?
Ida Parkkinen ([email protected])
Dissertation
Parkkinen Ida (2024) Innovation embedded in a storytelling system: An antenarrative construction of multistakeholder innovation. Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies, 320. University of Eastern Finland. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-61-5140-3