The formation of cascading market linkages: An exploration into the role of industry associations in the case of the German wood-based sector. Dissertation
In the context of circular bio-economy strategies and the political objective of cascading use of ressources, this dissertation aims to explore the role of industry associations in complex processes of market innovation (i.e., alteration of existing economic structures) in order to identify leverage points for governance interventions. Conceptually, this dissertation adopts a systematic and relational perspective on markets as emergent manifestations of underlying social processes. Empitically, the work focuses on the implementation of the cascading principle, understood as the formation of new resource linkages to increase resource efficiency in the use of renewable raw materials in production processes. The German wood-based sector is adopted as an illustrative case of a traditional industrial sector increasingly fascing political expectations and related challenges in the context of normative-oriented transformations. This dissertation consists of three research articles and a framework paper that links market-shaping processes and outcomes. The first article proposes a model to comprehensivela depicts the ideal-typical structure of a wood-based sector as a network of markets.
