Bettini, YvetteBrown, Rebekah R.de Haan, Fjalar J.Farrelly, Megan2025-06-182025-06-180040-1625http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84929061526&partnerID=8YFLogxKhttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/733764357Transitions management (TM) is emerging as an approach to governing complex sustainability problems. Critiques point to the need to understand dynamics of system change, particularly, with regard to actor agency at micro and meso scales. This paper begins to address this scholarly gap by first, developing an analytical framework of the institutional context of a transition that recognizes forms of agency. Second, a method to apply the framework to empirical cases of urban water socio-technical systems to map their institutional context is developed. The results revealed: i) ways to identify problematic features of current systems and underlying cognitive and normative frames, to assist with envisioning and transition pathway development, ii) a method of system analysis that can target leverage points for strategizing transitions agendas and experiments, and iii) a dynamic description of the system to assist with evaluating TM interventions and monitoring transitions. By providing a systems analysis cognizant of contextual dynamics and targeted to the knowledge needs of TM activities, this analytical tool shows promise for improving TM through further empirical application and research.Dr de Haan's contribution to the research was made possible in part through funding under the Australian Research Council's Linkage Projects Scheme (project number LP120100683) under which he is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Post-doctoral Fellowship Industry (APDI).15enPublisher Copyright: © 2014 Elsevier Inc.AgencyInstitutional dynamicsSystems analysisTransitions management2015-05-0110.1016/j.techfore.2014.06.00284929061526