Policies - A Lever for Industry Transformation

Sammanfattning: Sustainability is a megatrend affecting companies’ strategic development process in many industries, including the dairy industry. The concerns on environmental issues in combination with other societal demands have initiated an industry transformation towards dairy alternatives. While the magnitude remains uncertain, policies are significant in accelerating or inhibiting the shift. However, existing literature revealed a scholarly gap requiring investigation. Thus, this study aims to map the policy development in different regions with varying market ideologies, to identify factors influencing the policy development, to analyse the resulting regional magnitude towards an industry transformation, and to provide recommendations for practitioners. Designed with an explorative qualitative approach, this multiple comparative case study analysed both secondary data and primary data through semi-structured expert interviews and investigated the EU, the USA, China, Singapore, and Israel. The findings imply a framework consisting of five factors responsible for a country’s policy development: (1) relevance of the dairy sector, (2) political economic ideology, (3) sustainability and environmental viewpoint, (4) intra-societal demand, and (5) path dependency. In fact, the study hints towards an industry transformation in favour of dairy alternatives. It is observed that the context specificity alters a region’s response on the underlying subject, but dairy alternatives are gradually incorporated into the dominant food system. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the intra-societal demand for sustainability influences legislative development and is thus a main driver for industry transformation but shaped by varying interrelations across and to other factors. Ultimately, four policy themes were observed across the regions, underlying the legislators’ current primary concerns on market interventions, label censorships, sustainability focus, and R&D funding. This research adds to prior literature by addressing scholarly gaps in comparative legislative development and provides insights into the ongoing industry transformation from a political perspective. For scholars, the identified framework might serve as a basis for other industries as well. Moreover, due to research scarcity, the explorative nature opens a new field of theoretical investigations regarding political influences on specific industries. Likewise, practitioners benefit from business recommendations to exploit the potential of existing and upcoming policies.