AAER Revisited: From Systemic Change Narrative to Systemic Change Analysis
Abstract
The AAER (Adopt-Adapt-Expand-Respond) framework is widely used in Market Systems Development for describing systemic change processes through narrative stages. This paper identifies four significant weaknesses in AAER's narrative approach: (1) inconsistency about change in the wider system, (2) incomplete knowledge about the mechanisms driving systemic change, (3) failure to capture change originating outside the intervention, and (4) the tendency to treat systemic change as a simple tick-box exercise. The paper proposes an analytical version of AAER (AA/ER) that decouples the two-by-two matrix labelling and more explicitly addresses the relationship between scale and sustainability as key dimensions of systemic change. By reframing AAER as an analytical rather than purely narrative tool, practitioners can better understand the complex parameters underlying systemic change and avoid oversimplifying how change actually happens in systems.
Key takeaways
- The AAER framework's strength in presenting a simple narrative of systemic change is also its weakness -it oversimplifies complex change processes and creates confusion about whether Adopt/Adapt and Expand/Respond are mutually exclusive
- AAER's incomplete treatment of change mechanisms means practitioners often lack understanding of why change happens beyond the simplified story of intervention logic
- The framework fails to explicitly address change originating from sources other than the programme, making it difficult to assess the true scope and attribution of systemic change
- An analytical reframing of AAER that focuses on scale and sustainability as explicit dimensions provides a more robust tool for understanding systemic change without losing the accessibility that makes AAER useful to practitioners