Conclusions

Numbers

During the field research, we performed 13 interviews. Since some interviews were conducted with multiple people, the total amount of interviewees is 19.

From those 18 people (15 women and 3 men), 11 people had shares of TESO and 6 people had shares in Texel Energie. Of these people, 3 people had shares of both TESO and Texel Energie. Recently, 1 person has left Texel Energie and another person was considering to leave.

TESO and Texel Energie

About TESO, most people have a positive image. They mention the fact TESO is 'from' the Texelaars, TESO should not be taken over by another company and that the organisation of TESO is very good.

Shareholders of Texel Energie were mainly happy to be a member, because the organisation stimulates the local economy. However, those who were not part of Texel Energie mainly had a negative opinion about Texel Energie, for example saying that the organisation was bad, their financial state was poor or that they had little trust in the company.

Motivations to support innovation

Our main research question was 'Why do people (not) support local innovation?'. We analysed the motivations for supporting TESO or Texel Energie and assumed that these are motivations to support any local innovative initiative.

The following motivations are identified, ordered from the most important one to the least important.

1) From Texelaars, for Texelaars. Texelaars are very proud of their island and their community, so they are willing to support local initiatives which keep the resources on the island and improve the local daily life. At the same time, these initiatives strenghten to identity of Texel and its community.

2) Support local economy. Texelaars prefer to have a flow of money around the island, instead of money flowing to the mainland. Therefore, they are positive about initiatives stimulating Texel trade and keeping business on the island.

3) Inherited. Many interviewees mentioned that they inherited the shares from TESO from their parents. Another reason often heard is that people received the shares as a present (often from their parents). This is not a motivation to support innovation, but a cause for having TESO shares.

4) Personal incentives. TESO offers its shareholders 10 free boat trips a year. Texel Energie provides you with energy. These are examples of personal benefits for supporting a certain innovation. Many interviewees mentioned these benefits first, when we asked why they were a shareholder. When asking about their societal motivation, they added the above motivations. This shows that Texelaars are well aware of the personal benefits from being a shareholder.

5) Have a voice. Texelaars are very critical people with high standards. Therefore they like to have influence on how local organisations are run. Having is voice is important for them, and buying shares is the means to have a vote.

Barriers to support innovation

Without literally asking for it, we identified four barriers that Texelaars experience for supporting local innovation inititives. We collected this information by asking why they did not support TESO or Texel Energie. Again, we assume that these barriers would apply to new local innovations as well.

1) Lack of trust. When Texelaars don't trust the organisation of a company, they are less likely to support it by buying shares. By organisation they mean that the company is instable, incapable or has little chance to succeed.

2) Non-Texelaars involved. Texelaars don't like to support companies that are run by only non-Texelaars. Even, there have been issues when the CEO of TESO was a non-Texelaar. We think this is related to the issue of trust, because we experience that Texelaars are sceptical against non-Texelaar; do they work for money? Or do they want to help Texel(aars)?

3) Lack of information. Some people were poorly aware of the possiblities of joining TESO or Texel Energie. This was either because of age, or because they did not know how they could get shares of TESO if they wanted to.

4) Affect landscape. Since nature and the pure landscape are strength of Texel on which they are proud, new innovations should not disturb the landscape.

Conclusion

In short, we found out that many people are shareholder of TESO, and a few people are member of Texel Energie. The main motivations to support local innovations are the feeling that it is 'From Texelaars, for Texelaars' and to support the local economy. The main barrier for supporting innovation is a lack of trust in the functioning of the organisation.