Drivers of innovation in the automotive regime in the Stuttgart Region

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines drivers of innovation within the automotive in- dustry of the Stuttgart Region, Germany. Geels’ concept of a Multi-Level-Perspective is applied to the industry and its environment, when investigating positive and neg- ative drivers. The research design of this thesis follows an exploratory case study of innovation, that includes semi-structured interviews with experts of the indus- try and startup founders that invented a novelty that is somehow interconnected with the automotive industry. This qualitative data reveals relevant drivers of in- novation, interdependencies between actors and the level of origin and stimulation of the investigated drivers. Relevant drivers, such as technological change, in the form of digitalisation that pressures the sociotechnical car regime and stimulates tensions between actors and within corporations are revealed. This landscape pres- sure enables innovations to arise from a niche, discover market chances and place themselves in ”windows of opportunity” of the sociotechnical regime.