KEMs
Institutional change
GOAL
Working (with) the rules of the game
Providing insight into the effects of institutions and supporting institutional change processes.
PHASE IN DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
This category operates at a different level than the development process and therefore cannot be classified as Double Diamond.
APPLICATION
- Analyzing institutional change processes.
- Reflecting on alternative institutional arrangements
- Evaluating experiments.
- Anticipating the effects of new institutions.
What does it entail?
What does this category entail?
KEMs within the Institutional Change category provide insight into the effects of institutions and offer tools to support institutional change processes. Institutions are often seen as the rules of the game: formal rules such as laws and policies, and informal rules such as norms, values and routines, which give meaning to interactions between individuals and organizations.
These rules are not fixed: they are constantly maintained, challenged, and adapted by the actions of actors. Institutional change is therefore not just about analysis, but also about consciously designing and influencing these rules.
Why is that important?
Besides the wishes and possibilities of citizens and other stakeholders, the way systems are organized also significantly influences societal change. Institutions determine the scope for action, who is allowed to participate, and which solutions are considered legitimate.
Highly institutionalized systems can hinder transitions, while other institutions – or the lack thereof – can provide room for innovation.
Institutional change therefore requires attention to power, interests, legitimacy, and long-term learning processes. Without changing the rules, innovations often remain stuck in pilot projects or niches.
When do you apply these KEMs?
For questions such as:
- How can policy, regulations and other institutional tools be used to guide transitions?
- How do you design and facilitate the associated organization, network rules, and how do you encourage different behavior?
- What kind of leadership is needed in transitions?
- What institutional arrangements allow transitions to occur spontaneously and then proceed autonomously?
- How do you deal with new forms of governance such as network and self-governance?
- What ultimately ensures social acceptance of transitions?
What methods are there?
Methods for institutional change originate from, among others, public administration, business administration, political science and management and organizational sciences. Recent state-of-the-art methods can be divided into two groups:
1. Emergence methodology of institutional change
There are several theoretical frameworks and methodologies to analyze institutional changes:
- Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework (Ostrom, 2005).
- Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) (Ostrom's, 2009).
- Framework for incremental institutional change (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010).
- Process Tracing (Collier, 2011) is an important method for analyzing institutional dynamics.
- The Comparative Institutional Analysis (Morgan et al., 2010) can be used to learn from institutions and practices in other domains, regions or countries.
- Institutional Logics (Thornton et al., 2012) is the set of symbolic systems, such as assumptions, values and beliefs, with which individuals and organizations give meaning to their daily activities. It can explain why institutional changes in a given sector are accompanied by fundamental value debates and political contradictions, if the new institutions are based on different institutional logics than the existing institutions.
2. Design methodology of institutional change
The increasing degree of institutional diversity and dynamism has made the design of institutions more complex. Institutional design specifically focuses on the design and redesign of formal institutions that should lead to desired effects (Alexander, 2005). This includes institutional design strategies, in which knowledge about the nature and diversity of institutional rules that guide the behavior of actors within policy networks is used to influence network rules.
- The Design Approach (Waardenburg et al., 2020) offers a design approach specifically for collaborative governance forms, including small-scale experiments and co-creation of innovative solutions, that fit and help with the dynamics and uncertainty of contemporary societal challenges.
In addition, evaluation tools can further improve institutional design:
- It Framework for analyzing leadership functions, tasks and strategies (Meijerink & Stiller, 2013) is used to make an assessment of different forms of leadership in interorganizational networks. This tool distinguishes five important leadership functions that must be fulfilled to realize transitions.
- It Adaptive Capacity Wheel (Gupta et al., 2010) is an assessment tool, developed in the Knowledge for Climate research programme. It can be used to assess the adaptive capacity of institutions. It can demonstrate the strengths of existing institutions, as well as indicate where adjustments are needed. In addition to using independent assessments by researchers, the tool can also be used to allow practitioners to reflect on the institutional context in which they operate.
- In addition to using independent assessments by researchers, the tool can also be used to practitioners to reflect on the institutional context in which they operate. This coincides with Process Management (de Bruijn et al., 2010), where various strategies can be used to mobilise actors and bring about change in institutions.
- Technology Assessment (Van Est & Brom, 2012) offers an interactive and communicative method for technological change to arrive at a 'public opinion' regarding the desirability and manner of institutionalisation of new technologies.
New principles and methods of institutional design methodology have also emerged within governments:
- Vision Zero is a Swedish policy approach based on an ethical principle that every traffic fatality is socially unacceptable (Johansson, 2009). As a result of this program, a series of technological, institutional and behavioral measures have been taken that have significantly reduced the number of traffic fatalities in Sweden. The Vision Zero principle is now being applied in other countries and in various domains, such as health care and environmental policy. At the same time, new policy instruments are being designed that can move with societal change.
- With a view to the participatory society, Right to Challenge (RtC) social groups the legal possibility to achieve the objectives of a legal arrangement in an alternative way or even to adopt them.
Institutional change in practice
Methods
The first digital KEM monitor was published at the end of 2025. This concise, English-language trend report offers a current and concise overview of the most important developments in Key Enabling Methodologies (KEMs) over the past year. New methodological developments, insights, and research questions are mapped out for each KEM category.
Methods
The Innovation Toolkit is a practical bundle of templates, working methods and canvases - based on Lean, Agile and Design Thinking - specially designed to strengthen innovation within the central government.
