‘If James Bond ever drove a car share, then we have made it’: an exploratory study of institutional work and emotions for mobility as a service in Great Britain and Germany

Abstract

Amidst our climate crisis, transitioning to sustainable practices is imperative. Car dependency turned passenger transport into a major carbon emitter, yet progress to mitigate its impact and change the institutional status quo remains sluggish. Despite increasing awareness and emerging sustainable alternatives, prevailing beliefs in car ownership as synonymous with freedom and emotional attachments to cars challenge a transition. This study generates insights into the ways in which actors perform institutional work to influence institutional change. To investigate strategic efforts of creating and disrupting institutions, it examines Mobility as a Service (MaaS) as one pathway for advancing sustainability and analyses 52 semi-structured interviews with British and German MaaS stakeholders. Based on emerging findings, the study presents a focus on the role of emotions in how actors perform institutional work. The study expands our knowledge of institutional work by further uncovering the role of emotions for institutional change and sustainability transitions. “Emotionalizing Institutional Work” (EIW) is proposed as a new framework, including four analytically distinct strategies: promotive, protective, offensive, and connective emotionalizing. It suggests how actors use emotions as tools in promoting institutional change. Additional findings point to little difference in efforts between Great Britain and Germany, defying expectations rooted in varieties of capitalism. The study contributes to institutional theory with empirical evidence from a complex context. The results help to integrate emotions further into the analysis of institutional work, institutional logics, and chart the underexplored relationship between emotions (as tools) and institutional theory in institutional change processes. Practically, the study enriches transport discourse by presenting emotions as potential push and pull devices for advancing sustainable transport. Ultimately, anyone seeking to influence institutional change and move passenger transport to a reality wherein equitable and sustainable transport is enjoyed by all, will benefit from aiming not only at people’s minds, but their hearts.