Jürgen Beyer
The Same or Not the Same On the Variety of Mechanisms of Path Dependence
186 - 196
2010
4
3
International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
https://publications.waset.org/pdf/7260
https://publications.waset.org/vol/39
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
In association with path dependence, researchers often
talk of institutional “lockin", thereby indicating that farreaching
path deviation or path departure are to be regarded as exceptional
cases. This article submits the alleged general inclination for stability
of pathdependent processes to a critical review. The different
reasons for path dependence found in the literature indicate that
different continuityensuring mechanisms are at work when people
talk about path dependence (“increasing returns", complementarity,
sequences etc.). As these mechanisms are susceptible to fundamental
change in different ways and to different degrees, the path
dependence concept alone is of only limited explanatory value. It is
therefore indispensable to identify the underlying continuityensuring
mechanism as well if a statements empirical value is to go beyond
the trivial, always true “history matters".
Open Science Index 39, 2010