QWERTY Is Dead, Long Live Path Dependence
Research Policy, 2013
4 Pages Posted: 22 Apr 2013 Last revised: 12 Nov 2013
Date Written: 2013
Abstract
Whether path dependence 'exists' or not remains an unresolved question - but it is also a misformulated one. The paper demonstrates that the key issue is methodological, not ontological, and that management and organization scholars have been using inadequate research designs in the past to capture path dependence. The paper draws on recent research to explain why the QWERTY case does not provide evidence for path dependence, and provides clear methodological guidelines regarding which methods should be used in the future to fruitfully explore path dependence in the social sciences. Overall, the paper offers an alternative to both the 'sceptics' who claim that path dependence is a myth and the 'believers' who highlight the huge implications of path dependence, but fail to provide convincing evidence that it actually exists as a distinctive process leading to lock-in.
Keywords: path dependence, path dependency, QWERTY, increasing returns, lock-in
JEL Classification: O3, L5, B25, B41, C33, C62, D5
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Categorization by Association: Nuclear Technology and Emission Free Electricity
By Raghu Garud, Joel Gehman, ...
-
By Jochen Koch
-
Metatheoretical Perspectives on Sustainability Journeys: Evolutionary, Relational and Durational
By Raghu Garud and Joel Gehman
-
Terminating Institutionalized Termination – Why Sematech Became More than a Temporary System
By Gordon Müller-seitz and Jörg Sydow