title: Barriers to Innovation in Urban Wastewater Utilities: Attitudes of Managers in California.
abstract: In many regions of the world, urban water systems will need to transition into fundamentally different forms to address current stressors and meet impending challenges-faster innovation will need to be part of these transitions. To assess the innovation deficit in urban water organizations and to identify means for supporting innovation, we surveyed wastewater utility managers in California. Our results reveal insights about the attitudes towards innovation among decision makers, and how perceptions at the level of individual managers might create disincentives for experimentation. Although managers reported feeling relatively unhindered organizationally, they also spend less time on innovation than they feel they should. The most frequently reported barriers to innovation included cost and financing; risk and risk aversion; and regulatory compliance. Considering these results in the context of prior research on innovation systems, we conclude that collective action may be required to address underinvestment in innovation.
authors.affiliation: Wheeler Water Institute, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. kiparsky@berkeley.edu.|Engineering Research Center for Re-Inventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), National Science Foundation, Stanford, CA, USA. kiparsky@berkeley.edu.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1910-8885
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kiparsky
authors.affiliation: Stanford Law School and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.|Engineering Research Center for Re-Inventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), National Science Foundation, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Barton H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, MA, USA.|Engineering Research Center for Re-Inventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), National Science Foundation, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Binz
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.|Engineering Research Center for Re-Inventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), National Science Foundation, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Sedlak
authors.affiliation: Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.|Department of Public Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tummers
authors.affiliation: Environmental Social Science Department, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Dubendorf, Switzerland.|Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS,  Utrecht, The Netherlands.|Engineering Research Center for Re-Inventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), National Science Foundation, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Truffer
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D002140:California; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014507:Urbanization; D062065:Wastewater / Q000032:analysis*; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods*; D062066:Water Resources / Q000600:supply & distribution*
chemical_list: D062065:Wastewater
keywords: Decision-making; Innovation; Risk; Technology; Wastewater