Organizing Networks for Path Creation and Extension in Semiconductor Manufacturing Technologies

Abstract

How do collectives of organizations create a new technological solution or extend an already existing technological path in networked organizational fields? This paper contributes, first, to a general understanding of the recursive interplay between technology development and the processes of organizing innovation in networks by highlighting the role of collectives of organizations (and not only entrepreneurs) coordinated through interorganizational networks and by using a praxis perspective informed by neo-institutional and structuration theory. Second, and more specifically, this paper adds to the action and network turn in neoinstitutional theory by pointing to the importance of organizing collectives of actors through interorganizational networks in processes of field structuration as well as technology development. Third, it contributes to the literature on path dependency and path creation by developing the broader concept of path constitution that is based upon structuration and neoinstitutional theory and unpacks the process of building commitment and generating momentum. To all three ends the paper presents the field of lithography as a (now) networked organizational field in which several, partly overlapping sets of organizations struggle and/or compete with each other over the creation of a new path and the extension of an existing technological path.

Keywords: agency, innovation, path dependency, path creation, inter-organizational networks, organizational field, structuration theory, technology development