Platforming for Path-Breaking? The Case of Regional Electromobility Initiatives in Germany

Abstract

Platform policies, or ‘platforming’ for short, are becoming increasingly popular not only in academia but also in practice, where they are used for either starting regional knowledge-creating processes or to overcome the closure of regional clusters that have (been) developed. In both situations, platforming focuses on injecting ‘related variety’ into regional developmental processes, not only in terms of knowledge resources but also with regard to agents, activities and relations. But can such platforming be used to break an established technological, organizational or institutional path? The recent electromobility initiative in Germany provides a suitable case for investigating the potential of platforming for unlocking such path dependencies. The empirical insights this case has to offer lead us, however, to the conclusion that platforming may contribute to path-forming but not necessarily to path-breaking on a regional Level.

Keywords: Automobile industry, field configuring events, knowledge, network, path dependence, platforming, regional cluster