Lock-In and Break-Out from Technological Trajectories: Modeling and Policy Implications; preprint version

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Wilfred Dolfsma & Loet Leydesdorff, 
Lock-In and Break-Out from Technological Trajectories: Modeling and Policy
Implications, Technological Forecasting and Social Change (2009,
forthcoming); 

<http://www.leydesdorff.net/breakout/index.htm> 
<pdf-version at http://www.leydesdorff.net/breakout/breakout.pdf> 
 
Abstract.  Arthur provided a model to explain the circumstances that lead to
technological lock-in into a specific trajectory. We contribute
substantially to this area of research by investigating the circumstances
under which technological development may break-out of a trajectory. We
argue that for this to happen, a third selection mechanism--beyond those of
the market and of technology--needs to upset the lock-in. We model the
interaction, or mutual shaping among three selection mechanisms, and thus
this paper also allows for a better understanding of when a technology will
lock-in into a trajectory, when a technology may break-out of a lock-in, and
when competing technologies may co-exist in a balance. As a system is
conceptualized to gain a (third) degree of freedom, the possibility of
bifurcation is introduced into the model. The equations, in which
interactions between competition and selection mechanisms can be modeled,
allow one to specify conditions for lock-in, competitive balance, and
break-out.
 
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Loet Leydesdorff 
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam.
Tel. +31-20-525 6598; fax: +31-842239111
loet at leydesdorff.net; http://www.leydesdorff.net/