2 Research context and perspective
2.1 Introduction
The research reported in this book is aimed at capturing, exploring and explaining the dynamics of broadband markets and their outcomes in Europe. By providing an understanding of these dynamics the authors intend to contribute valuable inputs to the realization of the Digital Agenda targets: i.e., the desired broadband market outcomes. To accomplish this objective, an appropriate research approach and methodology was needed. This is the subject of this chapter.
We first explore – at a high level – the challenges ahead and the meaning of market dynamics in the context of this research project. Then we review the selection of the research approach and the design of the longitudinal case studies. Finally we present a summary of the analytical frameworks applied.
2.2 Initial research findings
Following an initial write-up of developments in the telecommunications sector in the Netherlands1, the OECD league table on (fixed) broadband penetration was consulted to identify countries with similar market outcomes. Denmark appeared to lead the league table (#1), followed by the Netherlands (#2) (OECD, 2011). An initial investigation showed that similar rankings were the result of totally different market dynamics.
In the Netherlands the outcome is considered to be the result of fierce competition between the PSTN-incumbent, the access-based operators and the two major RTV-cable incumbents, complemented by influential third parties – municipalities and housing corporations – taking initiatives in fibre deployments. In Denmark the broadband market is dominated by the PSTN-incumbent, which also runs the major part of the RTV-cable network infrastructure and has acquired the largest share of the existing fibre infrastructure. In Denmark infrastructure-based competition does not appear to be a significant explanatory factor for the broadband market outcome.
The next exploratory step was a comparison between the Netherlands and Belgium, more specifically the Flanders region. Belgium was ranked #13 in the OECD league table. Given the historical unity of the Northern and Southern Netherlands, many similarities were expected. Indeed, in both cases we can observe very strong competition between the PSTN-based and RTV-based incumbents. However, in Flanders the government triggered the consolidation of the cable sector. Moreover, fibre deployments are absent. There are no housing corporations, nor have municipalities taken initiatives in fibre deployment. Also the National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) – BIPT and OPTA, respectively – have followed different strategies.
It appears that different trajectories can lead to similar outcomes, and similar endowments may lead to different outcomes. It was concluded that a collaborative effort by local experts would be required to move beyond simple inferences to a more substantive explanation of the broadband market dynamics and their outcomes in Europe.2
In terms of market dynamics, we need to recognize that since the introduction of the telecommunications reform process in the mid 1980s, e-communications services – which include broadband services – are provided primarily by private firms operating in competitive markets.3 These firms use strategy and entrepreneurship to expand their markets and to obtain favourable positions vis-à-vis the competition. In this process they are both enabled and constrained by regulation. Government policy goals may be achieved indirectly through their actions but governments no longer have managerial control over the telecommunications operators. Hence, these firms are considered the primary actors in explaining the dynamics of broadband markets. The regulators and policy makers are now secondary actors that can influence market conditions to a degree, but cannot determine market outcomes.
However, if the market is perceived to fail in delivering the outcomes that are deemed to be of public interest, the secondary actors may become primary actors by taking over the entrepreneurial role in providing broadband services to the public, as some municipalities and regional governments have done. Or, alternatively, regulation – primarily aimed at assuring a more effective functioning of competitive markets – may be used as a tool of policy by attempting to guide the behaviour of the firms to achieve a particular market outcome.
Another factor influencing market dynamics is technology. For the entrepreneurial firms, technology is a means to an end. However, for the incumbent broadband suppliers technology is not a free choice but a legacy, a result of choices made in an earlier period. The PSTN incumbent is exploiting an access network of twisted copper pairs; the RTV-cable incumbent is exploiting a coax-based distribution network; and the mobile/wireless services incumbent is exploiting a 3G (third generation) digital network which leverages the infrastructure built to supply 2G services. The heavy investment required to transition to a newer network technology and the ease of migrating existing customers to the new network strongly influence broadband market dynamics.
While entrants into the broadband infrastructure market are largely free to adopt the latest available technology, they lack the income stream from existing customers and face the challenge of acquiring customers rather than migrating existing ones. The transition to next-generation broadband networks – Fibre to the Business (FttB), large-scale Fibre to the Home (FttH) deployments and All-IP mobile/wireless infrastructure – represents major challenges that will influence the market dynamics in both the short and the long run.
And then there is the issue of content. In the early days access and backbone networks were designed and optimized to provide a single service: the PSTN to provide telephone service, the RTV-cable network to distribute radio and television signals. Consumers subscribed to a network to receive a particular service. Digitalization introduced in the 1970s and 1980s allowed networks to become general conveyers of information of all types: voice, data, image and video. This process of convergence enabled different infrastructures to compete in the provision of the same type of services.
The introduction of the TCP/IP protocol stack as part of the public Internet in the 1990s effectively decoupled the services from the underlying infrastructure. Technical convergence enabled greater consumer choice of infrastructure and services suppliers and changed the structure of markets and the nature of competition, fundamentally affecting broadband market dynamics. These are now driven by firms able to bundle services, up to and including quadruple-play: a combination of fixed and mobile telephony, internet access and radio/television. More recently, ʻOver-the-Top’ services and operating system platforms have become increasingly important in driving competition in services and applications.
In short, broadband market dynamics reflect the interplay between supply and demand in a market environment subject to continuing, and often unexpected, changes, enabled by both past and new investments in technologies and assets, and conditioned by policy and regulation. The research challenge is how best to capture these market dynamics for subsequent analysis?
2.3 The research approach
Based on the high-level overview of the relevant market dynamics provided above, the research approach aimed at capturing the actions of the key players and the outcomes of these actions over time, hence, needs first of all to be descriptive. To allow the subsequent steps of exploring and explaining, we needed to capture the (potential) explanatory variables in these descriptions – for instance the motivations of the actors, the market structure, the distribution of market power, the regulations – as well as the market outcomes.4 As such, the research aimed at investigating contemporary developments in a socio-technological setting, whereby questions of ‘how ’and ‘why’ were pursued in a real-life context. This suggested the application of a longitudinal case study approach (Eisenhardt, Reference Eisenhardt1989; Yin, Reference Yin1989; Thietart et. al., Reference Thietart2001).
Recognizing that the broadband markets under consideration are essentially national in scope, a country-level case study approach was deemed appropriate. Having a set of case studies structured in terms of a common framework allowed a comparative research approach to be applied.
2.3.1 The country case study design
The scope of this research includes both fixed and mobile/wireless broadband. Achievement of the high-end data rate target of the Digital Agenda is to a large extent dependent on the deployment of fibre in the access network (fibre to the curb and to the last amplifier, as well as fibre to the business and to the home). As this transition to fibre is a major economic, regulatory and political challenge, the focus in most country case studies is on the developments in the market for fixed broadband. Nonetheless, as the Digital Agenda is also concerned with the provision of broadband to the population at large – including sparsely populated areas – mobile/wireless broadband is a major feature, for instance in the case studies covering the new member states.5
Our hypothesis was that broadband market dynamics are determined by a combination of factors, to be assessed in terms of their importance through the case study research, including:
institutional arrangements;
time of joining the EU;
market structure;
distribution of market power;
the industrial setting.
The units of analysis are the actions of the key actors operating in the broadband market and their outcomes. The key actors identified upfront are:
the operators providing broadband services;
the government, policy makers and legislators affecting operating conditions in the broadband market; and
regulators, enforcing the laws and regulations applicable to broadband.
The case studies reveal which ‘third actors’ have influenced the market dynamics to a significant extent and, hence, are included in the explanation of the broadband market outcomes. These actors include local and regional governments; housing corporations; citizen collectives; market entrants from outside the sector, etc.
The explanations of market outcomes by the authors of the case studies are based largely on the strategies firms apply in competitive markets, evaluating internal and external environment, market opportunities and threats against the company’s strengths and weaknesses, as advised by a range of authors, from Porter (Reference Porter1980) to De Wit and Meyer (Reference De Wit and Meyer2010).6 Research studies with a special emphasis on strategizing in network industries include Katz and Shapiro (Reference Katz and Shapiro1985, Reference Katz and Shapiro1994); Economides (Reference Economides1996); Shy (Reference Shy2001); Gottinger (Reference Gottinger2003); Economides (Reference Economides2005), and more recently with respect to the information economy e.g.: Evans and Wurster (Reference Evans and Wurster1997); Shapiro and Varian (Reference Shapiro and Varian1999); Porter (Reference Porter2001).
In their analyses of the market dynamics and their explanations of the market outcomes the case study researchers address the following issues:
(1) the market structure and its evolution, covering the infrastructure and services dimension and capturing the degree of entry and exit;
(2) the type of competition, e.g., price or functionality based, and the intensity of competition;
(3) the role of regulation, e.g., through local loop unbundling;
(4) the role of fixed versus mobile broadband7;
The market outcomes considered as the dependent variables are the uptake of broadband, the data rates and the prices. Each of the case studies concludes with the author’s outlook on achievement of the Digital Agenda targets set for 2020.8 The criteria for the interpretation of the case findings (e.g., in terms of intensity and degree) are largely a judgment call by the case researchers, leveraging their extensive experience in the field.
A recurring issue in interpreting the various approaches and outcomes in historical research is the lack of the counterfactual. In our research, the broad set of twelve comparable country-level case studies, capturing very diverse developments and market outcomes, is expected to compensate for the lack of a counterfactual in each case. A critical analysis of the similarities and differences in the settings of the cases allows for meaningful comparisons to be made and relevant patterns to be discerned (Diesing, Reference Diesing1971; Wilber and Harrison, Reference Wilber and Harrison1978).
A comparative analysis constitutes the main body of the concluding chapter – the cross-case study analysis. From this analysis follows the identification of the emerging patterns (the commonalities across the case studies) and the salient phenomena (the unique features described in a case; the innovations). The case study outcomes are – at the summary level – compared with the outcomes predicted by the applicable theories, concepts and models. In particular, we evaluate
(1) the role of infrastructure-based versus services-based competition in explaining the market outcomes;
(2) explore the validity of the ‘ladder of investment’ concept;
(3) examine the role of fixed versus mobile; and
(4) assess the relationship between competition and innovation.
To this end we combine the largely qualitative information from the case studies with quantitative information derived from a parallel research project into the performance of broadband markets in the EU.9 In addition, we use the findings from a related study on local loop unbundling (Lemstra and Van Gorp, Reference Lemstra and van Gorp2013).
A methodological difficulty is that the strategies of private actors are not necessarily in the public domain and hence must often be inferred in hindsight or established once the outcomes have become apparent, an issue that applies to a far lesser degree to public policy making. Hence, the capturing of motivations and the strategic analysis applied by these actors had to come from interactions of the case authors with these actors and from their insights into the (typical) strategic behaviour of these actors. These interactions were necessarily limited in number but considered sufficient for an appropriate interpretation of the case study materials, as the developments of broadband markets are (mostly) determined by only a few major actors.
In the design and the execution of the research, the researchers have paid due attention to assuring construct validity by using (to the extent possible) multiple sources of evidence, establishing chains of evidence and making these explicit. Where possible, local experts (e.g., fellow academics, regulators) have reviewed the case study data, analysis and conclusions. As the cases are largely built from literature and only a selective use of interviews, the reliability of the case studies is strengthened through detailed referencing.
In this multi-case-study research assuring the internal and external validity have gone hand-in-hand through the application of pattern recognition and pattern matching, the cross-validation of explanation building, the testing of rival explanations, and the validation of the replication logic across the multiple cases.
To facilitate the cross-case comparison, and thereby the testing of the replication logic, each of the country case studies follows the same framing of: Introduction; Case description; Case focus; Within-case analysis; Conclusions; and Reflections. The cross-case study analysis is also facilitated by the summary tables of statistical data at the beginning and end of the case study period – Tables 1.2 and 1.3 in Chapter 1, Introduction.
2.4 The case analysis
In our exploratory efforts we follow the methodological lead provided by Lawson in Economics and Reality (Reference Lawson1997, p282–9): ʻSocial explanation, appropriately conceived, is not the attempted deduction of events from sets of individual conditions and constant-conjunction ʻlaws’, but the identification and illumination of structures and/or mechanisms responsible for producing, or facilitating, social phenomena of interestʼ; or in other words, ʻ…[T]he primary aim of science is not the illumination or prediction of events…but the identification and comprehension of the structures, powers, mechanisms and tendencies which produce or facilitate them. And this understanding is all that is required for policy analysis and (where feasible) effective action.’
As the market developments are an interplay between technological progress, entrepreneurial activity to exploit the new technological capabilities, and governments safeguarding the public interests and public values, the case studies highlight the policy dimension.
In the historical framing of the case descriptions we use the periodization used by Noam of in his discussion paper ʻPolicy 3.0 for Telecom 3.0’ (Noam, Reference Noam2008).10 Telecom 1.0 and Policy 1.0 refer to the early period in which the telephone network was built; Telecom and Policy 2.0 start with the introduction of telecom reform and include the emergence of the Internet and the development of broadband; Telecom 3.0 starts with the introduction of Fibre-to-the-Home.
2.4.1 The analysis of socio-technical systems
For the explanation of broadband market dynamics and market outcomes, we follow a general framework for the analysis of socio-technological systems, see Figure 2.1. This framework was developed by Groenewegen and Koppenjan (Reference Koppenjan and Groenewegen2005), extended by Lemstra, and is based on the work by Williamson (Reference Williamson1998) on transaction cost economics.
Figure 2.1 Five layer model – levels of institutional analysis, technology enabled
The exploration and analysis of broadband markets is necessarily of an historical nature and includes a variety of explanatory variables such as technology, laws and regulations, strategies of the firms, values and norms, etc. The behaviour of the actors concerning broadband service provisioning is largely conditioned by the institutional structures in their environment, such as laws and regulations. On the other hand, these actors have a certain degree of autonomy in realizing their own objectives, to explore new ways and to change the institutional structures around them. Moreover, actors interact not only with the institutional structures in their environment but also with one another. In doing so, they share ideas, they learn, but they also compete and try to control the behaviour of others. To explore and analyse the dynamics of broadband markets we need to understand the behaviour of the different actors involved.
Figure 2.1 reflects the different layers that can be distinguished in the institutional environment of the actors, with the arrows indicating the interactions. In conceptualizing institutions we follow North in his definition of institutions as ʻhumanly devised constraints that structure political, economic, and social interactionsʼ; and ʻinstitutions consist of a set of moral, ethical, behavioural norms which define the contours and that constrain the way in which the rules and regulations are specified and enforcement is carried outʼ (North, Reference North1990).
At the top of Figure 2.1 in Layer 4 are the so-called informal institutions that influence – mostly implicitly – the behaviour of actors. This is the cultural embedding of the key actors involved in the provision of broadband services, which has an impact on the motivation of these actors and on their expectations of how the other (private and public) actors will behave. Our ideas about human rights and equity belong at this level.
While there are many similarities across Europe in norms and values, there are also cultural differences that will play-out at the lower levels. At Layer 3 we show the so-called formal institutions that influence the behaviour of the actors more explicitly. Here are located the laws about, for instance, competition and corporate governance, the EU Regulatory Framework for e-communications, the national telecom laws and regulations. These are examples of explicit institutions that have an impact on the behaviour of the industry actors.
Layer 3 is typically the working domain of public actors, such as the parliament, ministries and public agencies. At Layer 2 formal and informal institutional arrangements are identified, including the institutions that private actors create to coordinate the transactions between them. A distinction is made between the institutions that private actors purposefully create, such as contracts and organizations, and the ones that informally evolve, such as norms shared among the actors involved. Examples of purposeful institutions in our context are the GSM Association, the 3GPP, RIPE, and public-private partnerships.
At Layer 1 are the firm actors with their day-to-day routines, in our case operating in the competitive market place providing broadband service. These same actors, often in different roles and capacities, create and modify the institutional structures at the higher layers while at the same time being constrained by them. Examples of such efforts are the lobby groups of operators active at the European level, such as ETNO, ECTA and Cable Europe.
These interactive relationships are reflected by the arrows between the different layers. As the higher layers condition the actions at the lower layers, the institutional formation represented by these interactive relationships is an important aspect to be considered in explaining the dynamics of broadband markets. At the lower layers these relationships may be more explicit and traceable, while at the higher layers they are more diffuse and difficult to capture.
Technology plays an important role in the development of broadband. Hence, the model has been extended to reflect technology at Layer 0, which suggest linkages to all other layers. Technology is considered to be developed by actors/agents in Layer 1: i.e., as man-made. In its application it impacts Layers 2 through 4; in turn, technology is shaped through these interactions.
Because of the variety of explanatory variables involved at different levels of analysis, our case studies are clearly of a multi-disciplinary nature. At Layer 4 the disciplines of history, anthropology and sociology are relevant. Layer 3 is the domain of political science and law as well as of economics(e.g., property rights). For the analysis of the institutional arrangements at Layer 2, we consider institutional economics as particularly relevant, while for the analysis of the interactions between the layers we make use of the insights from evolutionary economics. Consequently, understanding, analysing and explaining the development process of broadband market dynamics and their outcomes is a multi-disciplinary affair in which different theories, concepts and models are applied within the broader framework of a country case study. The choice and rationalization thereof reside with the particular case study researcher.
2.4.2 Role perception of governments
Groenewegen provided a synthesis of the literature on the regulatory and developmental state into a framework which is useful for capturing the differences in the roles assumed by governments by relating these roles to the principle of operation of the market economy.11 We summarize the discussion provided in Markets and public values (Lemstra and Groenewegen, Reference Lemstra and Groenewegen2009).
Economies are systems in which social systems, judicial systems, political systems, and economic systems are interrelated and form a consistent whole. Market economies differ in terms of the value system, the role of private and public actors, and the type of laws and regulations. A general characteristic of a market economy is decentralized decision-making. In the Anglo-Saxon perception of markets the grounding is in the individualistic values of freedom, individual responsibility and accountability. Those values relate to the norm of competition as the right mechanism to allocate scarce resources. When information and knowledge are diffused among individuals, competitive markets are considered to be adequate governance structures to coordinate transactions. Related to these individualistic values is the tenet that decisions should be made, costs borne and benefits received at the most decentralized level, motivating the actors to seek the most efficient means for production, distribution and consumption. In the value system that supports decentralized allocation in markets, it is believed that those efficient private decisions will add up to the best possible public benefits. Prices that consumers pay reflect the costs of the inputs. Firms aim at profit maximization, or an increase of market share, innovative products, etc. When things go wrong this is reflected in prices and will initiate private actors to correct their decisions at the decentralized level. Therefore markets must be transparent, neutral and flexible. The market may also be assisted by government so it can perform even better. This takes us into the area of indicative planning, in which the supply of additional information as a public good is central.
To analyse the role of governments, Groenewegen (Reference Groenewegen1989) defined a spectrum between two extremes in perceptions of the role of governments: the regulatory state and the developmental state.
Within the regulatory state, the government operates at a distance and plays the role of the ‘watchdog’. Such a government is small and above all a facilitator of ʻwhat society wants’. In terms of information production and diffusion, it is the ‘lender of last resort’. After all other options have been tried, the state plays the role that remains. It monitors events; if it discovers inconsistencies, it does not intervene but feeds information back into the system. The regulatory state is strong in maintaining the rules of the game, supervising the free market and intervening strongly to enforce strict rules of competition.
In the ‘developmental state’ the government develops, a vision of the desired future, with or without consulting the private actors. The state defines the objectives and the instruments to be used to realize the vision. Such a state is well informed, is an authority in society, and is usually well respected because of its power to guide and direct structural developments.
2.4.3 Industrial analysis
For the industrial analysis reference is made to the Five Forces analysis framework introduced by Porter (Reference Porter1980) aimed at assessing the profitability of an industry. This framework is complemented by the SEPT framework based on Wheelen and Hunger (Reference Wheelen and Hunger1983) reflecting the embedding of the industry in the socio-economic, political and regulatory, and technological environment. See Figure 2.2.12
Figure 2.2 Framework for industry analysis (Porter-Wheelen)
2.4.4 The entrepreneur centre stage
When considering the role of the e-communications entrepreneur in economic terms, we can refer to the ‘production function’ and to economic activity aimed at adding value. A firm combines various inputs – capital, labour, knowledge – to produce outputs – products and services. In the case of an e-communications service provider special inputs are required, such as rights-of-way and, for providing mobile services, radio frequency spectrum usage rights. For the e-communications firm, the broadband infrastructure is a ‘means of production’, equivalent to a factory. See Figure 2.3.
Figure 2.3 Production function
In general, firms will only invest in new products and/or services if they can expect a future return. These investment decisions are driven by four major considerations:
(1) the prospective demand and willingness to pay for new products and/or services;
(2) the magnitude of the investments required;
(3) the strategies of the competition; and
(4) the degree of risk or uncertainty involved, including regulatory uncertainty.
The business case, in terms of depth of investment and the recovery period required, will influence the ability to obtain the necessary (external) funding. As such, the business case is especially challenging for communication services provisioning that requires an associated infrastructure roll-out such as Fibre-to-the-Home or, in the case of mobile broadband, the acquisition of the right to exploit the radio spectrum. A long period to exploit the investments will contribute to the willingness of entrepreneurs to invest, as it will make the broadband business case more viable.
2.4.5 Selecting the appropriate context and perspectives
This chapter reviewed the range of contexts and perspectives that have informed the various studies reported in this book. Aware of the diversity of approaches, the author(s) of each study have selected and applied the frameworks, theoretical grounding and perspective(s) that provided the best explanation for the developments being studied. In this way, we attempted to capture benefits not only from the commonalities in methodology applied across all the studies, but also the diversity in considering the variety of analytical perspectives that may strengthen our understanding of the evolution of broadband in light of the EU 2020 objectives.
References
1 See the Preface and Chapter 1 Introduction.
2 These initial explorations led to a collaborative effort with researchers at Ghent University, Belgium, to compare the case of The Netherlands more structurally with the case of Flanders. These efforts have proven to be a great lead into the larger broadband research-project. Initial results were presented at ITS, Vienna (Van der Wee, Verbrugge and Lemstra, Reference Van der Wee, Verbrugge and Lemstra2012).
3 On 30 June 2012, we commemorated the start of the telecommunications reform process in Europe as it linked to the publication of the ʻGreen Paperʼ. The full title of the Green Paper is: Towards a Dynamic European Economy: Green Paper on the Development of the Common Market for Telecommunications Services and Equipment (EC 1987). The creation of a common market for telecommunications service and equipment is directly linked with the liberalization of the telecommunications market. This dual objective distinguishes the telecommunications reform process in Europe from the reform processes in other regions, notably the United States, where the reform can be traced back to the landmark Carterfonedecision in 1968, triggering the formulation of market entry policies starting with the customer terminal market (Melody, Reference Melody, Miller and Samuels2002).
4 In terms of the potential explanatory variables we build on general management literature (e.g., Porter, Reference Porter1980, Reference Porter1985; Normann and Ramirez, Reference Normann and Ramirez1994; Porter, Reference Porter2001; Besanko et al., Reference Besanko, Dranove, Shanley and Schaeffer2004; De Wit and Meyer, Reference De Wit and Meyer2010) and industry specific literature (e.g., Newbery, Reference Newbery1999; Boyland, Reference Boyland and Nicoletti2000; Aalbers, et al., Reference Aalbers, Dijkgraaf, Varkevisser and Vollebregh2002; Spiller and Tommasi, Reference Spiller, Tommasi, Menard and Shirley2005; Lemstra, Reference Lemstra2006; Cawley, Reference Cawley2007; De Bijl and Peitz, Reference De Bijl and Peitz2008).
5 The Digital Agenda targets are set by population. We may infer that this will include the provision of broadband to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). The broadband needs of the larger enterprises are considered to be provided for in the current market setting.
6 See also Normann and Ramirez (Reference Normann and Ramirez1994); Courtney et al. (Reference Courtney, Kirkland and Viguerie1997); Pettigrew et al. (Reference Pettigrew, Thomas and Whittington2002); Besanko et al. (Reference Besanko, Dranove, Shanley and Schaeffer2004); Mahoney (Reference Mahoney2005).
7 Also of interest in this context is the way indoor traffic will be served in the future. Two principle options are emerging: (1) outdoor base stations (implying that in the competitive game the mobile operator beats the fixed operator); and (2) indoor base stations (which would imply that the fixed operator beats the mobile operator).
8 This outlook to be reflected against the national broadband plans, as being requested by the European Commission in 2003.
9 This quantitative analysis derives from a research project aimed at explaining broadband performance in the EU member states executed at the Delft University of Technology in collaboration with Ecorys, an economics research institute, and co-funded by ECTA, the European Competitive Telecommunications operators Association.
10 The working paper was the basis of the publication in 2010 of ʻRegulation 3.0 for telecom 3.0ʼ (Noam, Reference Noam2010).
11 Examples of literature underpinning the framework are Johnson (Reference Johnson1982, Reference Johnson and Woo-Cumings1999); Groenewegen (Reference Groenewegen1989); Majone (Reference Majone2010); and Levi-Faur (Reference Levi-Faur2011).
12 For a further discussion and application in the field of business strategy see De Wit and Meyer (Reference De Wit and Meyer2010).
