Participation Architecture

Turning intention into action.

Participation Architecture

Sustainable products, services and behaviours only take hold when they are easy to adopt and keep up. This research looks at how firms shift the burden of effort, risk and coordination, and where that burden is relocated.

The frameworkAbout

Doctoral research by Martin Bryan, University of Otago. Three ventures, 268 market-facing artefacts, ten interviews.

Aotearoa New Zealand · University of Otago

What a firm relies on

Participant Network Institution the firm's offering

To make taking part easier, a firm moves burden onto participants, onto a network of partners or onto institutions. Every firm leans on all three. Its type names the one it cannot do without. Tap a circle to see each type and its case.

Institution-Reliant

Burden absorption through institutional arrangements

The firm relies most on public, regulatory, financial and infrastructural arrangements to deliver its offering.

Case: an electric and hybrid car share

Network-Reliant

Burden absorption through commercial relationships

The firm relies most on a network of commercial partners it coordinates behind one offering.

Case: a surplus produce subscription

Participant-Reliant

Burden sharing through active participation

The firm relies most on participants doing meaningful work themselves, with support from staff.

Case: a low-waste refill grocery

At the centre

The firm and its offering

The firm designs an offering to make taking part easier. How that offering distributes effort, risk and coordination across participants, the firm and the systems behind it is its participation architecture.

Thesis §2.6, extending West & O'Mahony, 2008

Where the problem sits

The intention-action gap is built into markets.

Public concern about climate change is high. What holds people back is how everyday markets are organised: what an offering asks them to do, pay and risk.

Structure, cost and context shape behaviour as much as values do (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002; Bamberg & Möser, 2007). The emissions that matter most are made through markets, in how people move, eat and shop. So much of the solution lies with business, and sustainability startups are well placed to lead it. They often build new market conditions from the start, experimenting with access, pricing and coordination in ways larger firms are slower to adopt (Hockerts & Wüstenhagen, 2010; Geels, 2002).

Where the emissions are made

~20%

of global CO2 emissions come from transport (Our World in Data, 2020)

25–33%

of global greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food systems (Crippa et al., 2021; Poore & Nemecek, 2018)

9%

of plastic waste generated to 2015 had been recycled (Geyer et al., 2017)

The framework

The Participation Architecture Framework

Three burdens, read across the participant journey.

Market-shaping research shows that firms and other market actors shift burdens onto one another (Baker & Nenonen, 2026). This framework looks at how a single offering does it. Tap any item for what it means and where it comes from.

Built on five strands of research

Environmental psychology. Structural and contextual barriers limit climate action beyond motivation alone.

Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002; Bamberg & Möser, 2007; Gifford, 2011

Social practice theory. Treats everyday practice as the unit of analysis, and shows that firms can absorb the competence participation needs.

Warde, 2005; Shove, 2010; Shove et al., 2012

Behavioural decision research. Shows how defaults, framing and friction shape choice at the moment of decision.

Thaler & Sunstein, 2008; Johnson et al., 2012

Service and interface design. Subscriptions, service blueprints and platform rules configure the ongoing experience.

Tukker, 2004; Bitner et al., 2008; Lemon & Verhoef, 2016

Markets and market-shaping. The primary basis. Markets are malleable, and burdens can be shifted between market actors.

Vargo & Lusch, 2004; Nenonen & Storbacka, 2021; Baker & Nenonen, 2026

these inform the
Seven design elements

Defaults. What happens if the participant does nothing. Defaults shift decisions regardless of underlying preferences.

Johnson et al., 2012

Subscription terms. Commitment, renewal and cancellation rules. Automatic enrolment raises participation.

Madrian & Shea, 2001

Pricing and billing. How and when people pay. When cost stays salient, use rises; as it fades, use falls.

Gourville & Soman, 2002; Kahneman & Tversky, 1979

Bundling and integration. Selling a result rather than a product moves responsibility, risk and coordination to the firm.

Tukker, 2004; Baines et al., 2007

Service blueprints and onboarding. Front-stage and back-stage processes decide whether ongoing use feels routine or burdensome.

Bitner et al., 2008

Platform governance. Access rules and fee structures set the conditions for taking part.

Hagiu & Wright, 2015

Normative framing. Presenting an offering as convenience rather than sacrifice shapes whether taking part feels normal.

Tversky & Kahneman, 1981; Nenonen et al., 2024

which decide who carries the
Three burdens
Each burden sits in one of three positions, at each stage

Effort. Where the work sits: the physical and cognitive labour of taking part, and the know-how it needs.

Shove, 2010; Mont, 2004

Risk. Who bears the downside: financial, performance, switching and data exposure. Losses loom larger than gains.

Kahneman & Tversky, 1979

Coordination. How many actors, contracts and systems someone must line up. Scheduling and coordination are a common reason people stop taking part.

Southerton, 2003

Participant-borne. The person taking part carries it: the work, the downside or the lining up.

Thesis §3.2 and Appendix C.2

Shared. Genuinely split between participant and firm, with each carrying part.

Thesis §3.2 and Appendix C.2

Firm-absorbed. The firm takes it on, directly or through the partners and arrangements behind it.

Thesis §3.2 and Appendix C.2

Across four stages

Entry. Signing up, verification and first use.

Lemon & Verhoef, 2016

Ongoing use. The routine of taking part, and the rules that govern it.

Lemon & Verhoef, 2016

Persistence. What keeps people taking part over months, beyond the first sign-up.

Voorhees et al., 2017

Exit. Leaving, pausing, returning, or the offering itself ending.

Voorhees et al., 2017

together these make up
The firm's participation architecture

What it is. The firm-level configuration through which effort, risk and coordination are distributed across participants, firms and supporting systems. Each burden is coded participant-borne, shared or firm-absorbed.

Thesis §2.6 and Chapter 3, extending West & O'Mahony, 2008

which operates within
Institutional conditions

Regulatory. Pricing signals, compliance and policy stability decide what is economically viable.

Newell et al., 1999; Rogge & Reichardt, 2016

Infrastructure. Physical and urban infrastructure make participation possible before anyone decides.

Cervero & Kockelman, 1997; Mont, 2004

Financial. Absorbing risk needs capital. When finance is tight, risk shifts back to users.

Gillingham & Palmer, 2014; Adner, 2017

Cultural. Legitimacy decides whether participation spreads beyond early adopters.

Suchman, 1995; Delmas & Burbano, 2011

which shape the
Outcomes

Retention. People keep taking part over time.

Thesis Figure 3.1

Constraint. It survives, but missing conditions cap how far it can grow.

Thesis §7.6

Failure. The architecture stops, even if the participant-facing service still worked.

Thesis §7.6

The mechanism

Burden Relocation Stability

A burden taken off the participant rarely disappears. It moves somewhere else, and whether the architecture holds depends on whether that destination can carry it.

Extends Baker and Nenonen's (2026) account of burden-shifting to the design of a single offering.

Status

PresentedDepartment of Marketing seminar, University of Otago, 7 August 2026. OBS Postgraduate Symposium, 3 September 2026.
Foundation studyAotearoa New Zealand, complete
Comparative phaseThe Netherlands and the United Kingdom
Martin Bryan

About the researcher

Martin Bryan

PhD candidate in Marketing, University of Otago.

Two decades in sustainability, from regenerative agriculture to the boardroom, most recently as Global Chief Sustainability Officer at IPG Mediabrands.

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