Autonomous Innovations in Rural Communities in Developing Countries III-Leverage Points of Innovations and Enablers of Social-Ecological Transformation

Abstract

To address the complex and difficult challenges that are occurring in complex social-ecological systems, a transformation toward sustainable futures is required. Understanding the characteristics and functions of leverage points (LPs), which bring about significant changes in complex systems, will greatly contribute to the various practices toward achieving sustainable futures. We conducted a detailed analysis of 15 cases of autonomous innovations emerging among vulnerable sectors in six countries to contribute to understanding the mechanisms of transformation of social-ecological systems by identifying the characteristics and functions of LPs. We found that three types of LPs with different characteristics play their roles in a multi-layered and interrelated manner in the emergence processes of autonomous innovations. These LPs contributed to the improvement of various aspects of well-being and facilitated the transformation of the social-ecological systems by enhancing the five previously proposed enabler categories. The multi-layered and interrelated functioning of LPs promotes the enhancement of various aspects of human well-being and strengthens the enabler categories. These were found to be important mechanisms for the transformation of social-ecological systems. Based on these results, we derive nine guiding principles for the conditions and mechanisms of transformation. These results indicate that a deeper study of autonomous innovation through an LP lens could make a significant contribution to solving or mitigating the wicked problems faced by humanity.

Autonomous Innovations in Rural Communities of Developing Countries II—Causal Network and Leverage Point Analyses of Transformations

“…To obtain more generalizable knowledge about the mechanisms of transformations, we conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of the emergence mechanisms of autonomous innovations and enablers of social-ecological transformations using the cases of autonomous innovations that we accumulated [33,45]. To understand the emergence mechanism of autonomous innovations toward social-ecological transformations, research is needed to theoretically and mathematically explore the dynamics and factors that cause the transformation of systems through interventions on the initial conditions and challenges of innovation by understanding the time-series changes in the causal network.…”