Struggling towards sustainability: productivity paradoxes and institutional wayfinding practices in an early-stage socio-technical energy transition

The fascination with the phenomenon of productivity itself takes it beyond traditional economic perspectives. The `sociological eye' treats productivity like any other institutional practice in society, capable of being studied from many different angles. This paper takes up the idea that the productivity challenge persists and considers the role of stubborn institutions, particularly the strong hold of institutional regimes that grips the doing of work and how things get done in institutional environments. Drawing on data from a sample of geoscientists, geo-consultants, policy and government actors, and international trade associations (no=39) and close dialogues (no=34), we explore the doing of productivity under financial regime duress in an early-stage energy market transition. We identify the duress of the financial regime and demonstrate that which harks back to the historical precedence, bounded decision-making requirements and short-term determinacy. These insights illuminate how the productivity assessment practice can stimulate practical wayfinding activity of 'stitching and patching', 'formal diverting to informality and off-scripting' and 'policy pathway reform calling'. The paper concludes by proposing four implications of the sociological eye for the conduct of productivity research, highlighting the intensification of conservativism, commercialisation curtailment, financial economic irony, problematized notions of, and a respect for, the institutional status quo regime.