A systemic perspective on the breakthrough of rock’n’roll
A while ago, we explored what could be learnt about how change happens by analysing the breakthrough of rock’n’roll, as well as unpacking the reasons and process behind bringing this story to life. In this blog, we’ll take the story an inch further to explore one of the frameworks we use in the Systems Change Lab at Forum for the Future, namely the Multi-Level Perspective.
How does change happen?
“A transition is a radical, structural change of a societal (sub)system that is the result of a co-evolution of economic, cultural, technological, ecological and institutional developments at different scale-levels.”
Rotmans, Kemp, and Van Asselt (2001)
There are a multitudes of approaches to studying how change happens, topic which we’ve explored in a previous post on systems change as an outcome and as a process. One of these approaches is the Multi-Level Perspective, which was developed as a way of understanding the different levels at which change happens as “nested multi-scalar, multi-modal hierarchy of activities” at altitudes of a system’s structure (Geels, 2007).
The framework unpacks socio-technical transitions as a way of understanding the different interplays between the diffusion of technological innovation and their impact on societal domains in the transition from one dynamically stable (Geels, 2011) condition to another.
The Multi-Level Perspective depicts the multiple intersecting levels of at which change occurs. As we saw in with rock’n’roll, change came from technological innovation, but that alone wouldn’t have been sufficient — the social and cultural factors and events accelerated the way change happened.
The landscape level includes the natural environment, the demographics of society, the socio-political trends, as well as the cultural values or paradigm. For example, the breakthrough of rock’n’roll came about in a context dominated by the post-war baby boom, the rise in suburban living and spending power, as well as racial divide and an increasing intergenerational conflict.
The regimes are social networks where markets, infrastructures, technology, policy and so on have coalesced into stable configurations. There is usually a shared rules within a set community, and describes the current pattern or structure of the status quo. In the rock’n’roll example, two different systems competed and collided before finding a mutually beneficial sweet spot: the recording industry (and its dominant record labels) and the distribution industry (and the rise in popularity of radio as a means for music distribution).
The niches are small networks of dedicated actors, often outside or on the edge of these regimes, where radical or disruptive innovations are created or emerge. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and many other legendary figures were at the forefront of experimenting, but equally, their novel musical approaches wouldn’t have been possible without technological innovation such as the electric guitar, the microphone or vinyl technology.
‘So what?’, you might ask…
…And you’d be right to do so. Just by studying how change has happened in the past, it doesn’t mean that we have a recipe book for how change might happen in the future, and the shocks of last year prove just how pointless a task making predictions is. What it does do, is enable us to take a systemic perspective, and start to understand the different interrelations between different parts of a system, or between multiple interconnected systems. The Multi-Level Perspective is one framework for doing so, and we’d love to hear your thoughts if you use different approaches and frameworks — shout out your favourites or any other questions at c.angheloiu[@]forumforthefuture.org or join the conversation #systemschange.
Thinking about the emergence of rock’n’roll, think the following questions in light of the Multi-Level Perspective:
What were the emerging trends and patterns in the 1920s and 1930s that in retrospect hinted at the emergence of something new?
How was the world changing?
How were the different stakeholders interacting? What were they changing in the process?
Who got value from the emergence of this new configuration of the system?
What could have been done by a business to predict this in 1930?
Looking at the music industry now…
How are new disruptors changing the system?
What might happen if we take too narrow a view of the possible changes on the horizon?
What are the future opportunities and how might you support the system you’re part of to reconfigure for sustainability?
What would happen if we deliberatively worked with the dynamic ways in which change happens, actively looked out for opportunities and what might impact our future?
Bibliography:
Geels, F. W. (2007). Analysing the breakthrough of rock “n” roll (1930–1970) Multi-regime interaction and reconfiguration in the multi-level perspective. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 74(8), 1411–1431.
Geels, F. W., & Schot, J. (2010). The Dynamics of Transitions: A Socio-Technical Perspective. ResearchGate, 11–104.
Grin, J., Rotmans, J., & Schot, J. (2011). Transitions to Sustainable Development: New Directions in the Study of Long Term Transformative Change (1 edition). New York: Routledge.
Rotmans, J., Kemp, R., & Van Asselt, M. (2001). More evolution than revolution: transition management in public policy. Foresight, 3(1), 15–31.
Verhees, B., Raven, R., Habisch, A., & Thøgersen, J. (2015). The Multi-Level Perspective and its Relevance for EU-InnovatE — A WP1 Interim Report.
