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What Do We Know About Innovation in Nanotechnology? Some Propositions About an Emerging Field Between Hype and Path-Dependency

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posted on 2023-06-08, 00:14 authored by Martin Meyer
This contribution formulates a number of propositions about the emergence of novel nanoscience and nanotechnology (N&N). Seeking to complement recent work that aims to define a research agenda and draws on general insights from the innovation literature, this paper seeks to synthesize knowledge from innovation-related studies of the N&N field. More specifically, it is suggested that N&N is often misconstrued as either a field of technology or an area of (broadly) converging technologies while evidence to date suggests rather that N&N be considered a set of inter-related and overlapping but not necessarily merging technologies. The role of instrumentation in connecting the various N&N fields is underlined. Finally, the question is raised whether change in N&N tends to be incremental rather than discontinuous, being the result of technological path-dependencies and lock-ins in industry-typical search regimes that are only slowly giving way to more boundary-crossing activities.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Helsinki University of Technology, Institute of Strategy and International Business.

Pages

49.0

Place of publication

Helsinki

Department affiliated with

  • Business and Management Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • No

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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