The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics and activities of intermediaries that are involved in innovation diffusion and, thus, contribute to the acceleration of sustainability transitions. The paper develops a taxonomy of four types of diffusion intermediaries based on official firm registry data on intermediaries involved in renewable electricity technologies in Sweden, which differ from each other in terms of business activity width and sectoral coverage. An analysis of the intermediaries’ business descriptions shows that: (1) most intermediaries are not exclusively involved in intermediation and many are active in several sectors, (2) the relative importance of different intermediation activities varies between different types of intermediaries, and (3) diffusion intermediation has a technology-specific component. These findings imply that researchers and policy makers should not treat diffusion intermediaries as a homogeneous collective. Moreover, there might be an (unexploited) potential for intermediaries and policy makers to exploit cross-sectoral learning.

本文的目的是探讨参与创新扩散的中介机构的特征和活动，从而有助于加速可持续性转型。本文基于瑞典有关可再生电力技术的中介机构的官方公司注册数据，建立了四种类型的扩散中介机构的分类标准，这些数据在业务活动范围和行业覆盖率方面互不相同。对中介机构业务描述的分析表明：（1）大多数中介机构并不专门参与中介活动，许多中介机构活跃于多个部门；（2）不同中介活动的相对重要性在不同类型的中介机构之间有所不同；以及（3 ）扩散中介具有特定于技术的组件。这些发现表明，研究人员和政策制定者不应将扩散中介视为同质的集体。此外，中介机构和政策制定者可能有（未开发的）利用跨部门学习的潜力。