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

Abstract

Platform policies, or “platforming,” are becoming increasingly popular in innovation research and practice, where they are used for either starting regional knowledge-creating processes or overcoming the closed nature of regional clusters that have, or have been, developed. For both purposes, platforming focuses on injecting related variety into regional developmental processes, not only in terms of knowledge resources but also agents, activities, and relations. But can such platforming be used to break away from an established technological, organizational, or institutional path? Using a case-study approach to the electromobility initiative in Germany, the authors investigate the potential of platforming for unlocking such path dependencies. The empirical insights their research lead them to conclude that platforming may contribute to path-forming, but not necessarily to path-breaking, at a regional level.