The Same or Not the Same - On the Variety of Mechanisms of Path Dependence
In association with path dependence, researchers often
talk of institutional “lock-in", thereby indicating that far-reaching
path deviation or path departure are to be regarded as exceptional
cases. This article submits the alleged general inclination for stability
of path-dependent processes to a critical review. The different
reasons for path dependence found in the literature indicate that
different continuity-ensuring mechanisms are at work when people
talk about path dependence (“increasing returns", complementarity,
sequences etc.). As these mechanisms are susceptible to fundamental
change in different ways and to different degrees, the path
dependence concept alone is of only limited explanatory value. It is
therefore indispensable to identify the underlying continuity-ensuring
mechanism as well if a statement-s empirical value is to go beyond
the trivial, always true “history matters".
[1] T. Guinnane,, W. Sundstrom, and Whatley, W. (eds.), History Matters:
Essays on Economic Growth, Technology, and Demographic Change,
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
[2] J. Mahoney, "Path Dependence in Historical Sociology," Theory and
Society, Vol.29, 2000, pp. 507-548.
[3] P. Pierson, "Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of
Politics", American Political Science Review, Vol. 94, No. 2, 2000, pp.
251-267.
[4] J. Sydow, G. Schreyögg, and J. Koch, "Organizational path dependence:
Opening the black box," Academy of Management Review, Vol. 34,
2009, to be published.
[5] J. Elster, "A Plea for Mechanisms," in: Social Mechanisms: An
Analytical Approach to Social Theory, P. Hedström and R. Swedberg,
Eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 45-73.
[6] J. Mahoney, "Tentative Answers to Questions about Causal
Mechanisms," Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA, August 28th, 2003.
[7] R. Mayntz, "Mechanisms in the Analysis of Macro-Social Phenomena,"
MPIfG Working Paper 03/3, Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Societies, Cologne, 2003.
[8] W.B. Arthur, "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-
In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Vol. 99, 1989, pp. 116-131.
[9] W.B. Arthur, Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in Economics.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.
[10] W.B. Arthur, "Increasing Returns and the New World of Business,"
Harvard Business Review, Vol. 74, No. 4, 1996, pp. 100-109.
[11] P.A. David, "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American
Economic Review, Vol. 75, No.2, 1985 pp.332-337.
[12] P.A. David, "Path Dependence, its Critics and the Quest for Historical
Economics", Working Paper 00011 Department of Economics, Stanford
University<http://www.econ.stanford.edu/faculty/workp/swp00011.pdf>
, 2000.
[13] S.J. Liebowitz and S.E. Margolis, "The Fable of the Keys," Journal of
Law & Economics, Vol.33, 1990, pp.1-25.
[14] D. Foray, "The Dynamic Implications of Increasing Returns:
Technological Change and Path Dependent Inefficiency," International
Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 15, 1997, pp.733-752.
[15] R. Garud and P. Karnoe (eds.) Path Dependence and Creation, Mahwah:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001.
[16] P.A. David, "Understanding the Economics of QWERTY: The Necessity
of History," in: Economic History and the Modern Economist, W.N.
Parker, Ed., London: Basil Blackwell, 1986, pp.30-49.
[17] P.A. Hall and D. Soskice, D. "An Introduction to Varieties of
Capitalism," in: Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations
of Comparative Advantage, P. Hall and D. Soskice, Eds., Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001, pp.1-68.
[18] K. Thelen, K. "Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,"
Annual Review of Political Science, 1999, No.2, pp.369-404.
[19] J. Zysman, "How Institutions Create Historically Rooted Trajectories of
Growth," Industrial Corporate Change, Vol. 3, No.1, 1994, pp. 243-283.
[20] P. Pierson, "Not Just What, but When: Timing and Sequence in Political
Processes," Studies in American Political Development, Vol. 14, 2000,
pp. 72-92.
[21] D. Rueschemeyer, and J.D. Stephens, "Comparing Historical Sequences:
A Powerful Tool for Causal Analysis," Comparative Social Research,
Vol. 17, 1997, pp. 55-72.
[22] K.J. Arrow, "Path Dependence and Competitive Equilibrium," in:
History Matters. Essays on Economic Growth, Technology, and
Demographic Change, T.W. Guinnane et al., Eds., Chicago: Stanford
University Press, 2003.
[23] P.A. David, "The Landscape and the Machine: Technical
Interrelatedness, Land Tenure and the Mechanization of the Corn
Harvest in Victorian Britain," in: Essays on a Mature Economy, D.N.
McCloskey, Ed., London: Methuen, 1971, pp. 145-205.
[24] D.C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic
Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
[25] D.C. North, "Institutions and Credible Commitment," Journal of
Institutional and Theoretical Economics, Vol. 149, No.1, 1993, pp. 11-
23.
[26] J. Beyer and J. Wielgohs, "On the Limits of Path Dependency
Approaches for Explaining Postsocialist Institution Building," East
European Politics and Societies, Vol. 15, No.2, 2001, pp. 356-388.
[27] D.C. North, "Economic Performance Through Time," in: The New
Institutionalism in Sociology, M.C. Brinton and V. Nee, Eds., Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 247-257.
[28] J. Beckert, "What is Sociological about Economic Sociology?
Uncertainty and the Embeddedness of Economic Action," Theory and
Society, Vol. 25, No. 6, 1996, pp.803-840.
[29] I. Wallerstein, The Modern World System I: Capitalist Agriculture and
the Origins of the European-World Economy in the Sixteenth Century,
New York: Academic Press, 1974.
[30] W.G. Roy, Socializing Capital: The Rise of the Large Industrial
Corporation in America, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
[31] K. Orren, Labor, the Law, and Liberal Development in the United States,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
[32] J.A. Goldstone "The Problem of the Early Modern World," Journal of
Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol.41, 1998, pp. 249-284.
[33] B. Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston:
Beacon Books, 1996.
[34] A. Gerschenkron Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962.
[35] T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979.
[36] R.B. Collier and D. Collier, Shaping the Political Arena, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1991.
[37] T.L. Karl and P.C. Schmitter, "Modes of Transition in Latin America,
Southern and Eastern Europe," International Social Science Journal,
Vol.43, 1991, pp. 269-284.
[38] T Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan, New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1997.
[39] S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and
Voter Alignments: An Introduction," in: Party Systems and Voter
Alignments, S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan, Eds., New York: Free Press,
1967, pp. 1-64.
[40] R.B. Collier, "Combining Alternative Perspectives: Internal Trajectories
versus External Influences as Explanations of Latin American Politics in
the 1940s," Comparative Politics, Vol.26, No.1, 1993, pp. 1-29.
[41] K. Thelen, "How Institutions Evolve. Insight from Comparative-
Historical Analysis," in: Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social
Sciences, J. Mahoney and D. Rueschemeyer, Eds., Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp.208-240.
[42] P.J. DiMaggio and W.W. Powell "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional
Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields," in:
The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, W.W. Powell and
P.J. DiMaggio, Eds., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp.41-
62.
[43] W.R. Scott and J.W. Meyer "The Rise of Training Programs in Firms
and Agencies," in: Institutional Environments and Organizations:
Structural Complexity and Individualism, W.R. Scott and J.W. Meyer,
Eds., Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1994, pp. 228-254.
[44] N. Fligstein, "The Structural Transformation of American Industry," in:
The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, W.W. Powell and
P.J. DiMaggio, Eds., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp.
311-336.
[45] M.L. Katz and C. Shapiro "Technology Adoption in the Presence of
Network Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 94, 1986,
pp. 822-841.
[46] U. Witt, "ÔÇ×Lock-in" vs. ÔÇ×Critical Masses" - Industrial Change under
Network Externalities," International Journal of Industrial
Organization, Vol. 15, 1997, pp. 753-773.
[47] M.A. Cusumano, Y. Mylonadis, and R.S. Rosenbloom, "Strategic
Manoeuvring and Mass-Market Dynamics: The Triumph of VHS over
Beta," Business History Review, Vol. 6, 1992, pp. 51-94.
[48] G. Alexander, "Institutions, Path Dependence, and Democratic
Consolidation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 13, No.3, 2001, pp.
249-270.
[49] J. Beyer, ÔÇÿBeyond the Gradualism-Big Bang Dichotomy - The
Sequencing of Reforms and its Impact on GDP," in: Successful
Transitions, J. Beyer, J. Wielgohs, and H. Wiesenthal, Eds., Baden-
Baden: Nomos, 2001.
[50] P.L. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, New
York: Doubleday, 1966.
[1] T. Guinnane,, W. Sundstrom, and Whatley, W. (eds.), History Matters:
Essays on Economic Growth, Technology, and Demographic Change,
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
[2] J. Mahoney, "Path Dependence in Historical Sociology," Theory and
Society, Vol.29, 2000, pp. 507-548.
[3] P. Pierson, "Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of
Politics", American Political Science Review, Vol. 94, No. 2, 2000, pp.
251-267.
[4] J. Sydow, G. Schreyögg, and J. Koch, "Organizational path dependence:
Opening the black box," Academy of Management Review, Vol. 34,
2009, to be published.
[5] J. Elster, "A Plea for Mechanisms," in: Social Mechanisms: An
Analytical Approach to Social Theory, P. Hedström and R. Swedberg,
Eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 45-73.
[6] J. Mahoney, "Tentative Answers to Questions about Causal
Mechanisms," Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA, August 28th, 2003.
[7] R. Mayntz, "Mechanisms in the Analysis of Macro-Social Phenomena,"
MPIfG Working Paper 03/3, Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Societies, Cologne, 2003.
[8] W.B. Arthur, "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-
In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Vol. 99, 1989, pp. 116-131.
[9] W.B. Arthur, Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in Economics.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.
[10] W.B. Arthur, "Increasing Returns and the New World of Business,"
Harvard Business Review, Vol. 74, No. 4, 1996, pp. 100-109.
[11] P.A. David, "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American
Economic Review, Vol. 75, No.2, 1985 pp.332-337.
[12] P.A. David, "Path Dependence, its Critics and the Quest for Historical
Economics", Working Paper 00011 Department of Economics, Stanford
University<http://www.econ.stanford.edu/faculty/workp/swp00011.pdf>
, 2000.
[13] S.J. Liebowitz and S.E. Margolis, "The Fable of the Keys," Journal of
Law & Economics, Vol.33, 1990, pp.1-25.
[14] D. Foray, "The Dynamic Implications of Increasing Returns:
Technological Change and Path Dependent Inefficiency," International
Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 15, 1997, pp.733-752.
[15] R. Garud and P. Karnoe (eds.) Path Dependence and Creation, Mahwah:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001.
[16] P.A. David, "Understanding the Economics of QWERTY: The Necessity
of History," in: Economic History and the Modern Economist, W.N.
Parker, Ed., London: Basil Blackwell, 1986, pp.30-49.
[17] P.A. Hall and D. Soskice, D. "An Introduction to Varieties of
Capitalism," in: Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations
of Comparative Advantage, P. Hall and D. Soskice, Eds., Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001, pp.1-68.
[18] K. Thelen, K. "Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,"
Annual Review of Political Science, 1999, No.2, pp.369-404.
[19] J. Zysman, "How Institutions Create Historically Rooted Trajectories of
Growth," Industrial Corporate Change, Vol. 3, No.1, 1994, pp. 243-283.
[20] P. Pierson, "Not Just What, but When: Timing and Sequence in Political
Processes," Studies in American Political Development, Vol. 14, 2000,
pp. 72-92.
[21] D. Rueschemeyer, and J.D. Stephens, "Comparing Historical Sequences:
A Powerful Tool for Causal Analysis," Comparative Social Research,
Vol. 17, 1997, pp. 55-72.
[22] K.J. Arrow, "Path Dependence and Competitive Equilibrium," in:
History Matters. Essays on Economic Growth, Technology, and
Demographic Change, T.W. Guinnane et al., Eds., Chicago: Stanford
University Press, 2003.
[23] P.A. David, "The Landscape and the Machine: Technical
Interrelatedness, Land Tenure and the Mechanization of the Corn
Harvest in Victorian Britain," in: Essays on a Mature Economy, D.N.
McCloskey, Ed., London: Methuen, 1971, pp. 145-205.
[24] D.C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic
Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
[25] D.C. North, "Institutions and Credible Commitment," Journal of
Institutional and Theoretical Economics, Vol. 149, No.1, 1993, pp. 11-
23.
[26] J. Beyer and J. Wielgohs, "On the Limits of Path Dependency
Approaches for Explaining Postsocialist Institution Building," East
European Politics and Societies, Vol. 15, No.2, 2001, pp. 356-388.
[27] D.C. North, "Economic Performance Through Time," in: The New
Institutionalism in Sociology, M.C. Brinton and V. Nee, Eds., Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 247-257.
[28] J. Beckert, "What is Sociological about Economic Sociology?
Uncertainty and the Embeddedness of Economic Action," Theory and
Society, Vol. 25, No. 6, 1996, pp.803-840.
[29] I. Wallerstein, The Modern World System I: Capitalist Agriculture and
the Origins of the European-World Economy in the Sixteenth Century,
New York: Academic Press, 1974.
[30] W.G. Roy, Socializing Capital: The Rise of the Large Industrial
Corporation in America, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
[31] K. Orren, Labor, the Law, and Liberal Development in the United States,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
[32] J.A. Goldstone "The Problem of the Early Modern World," Journal of
Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol.41, 1998, pp. 249-284.
[33] B. Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston:
Beacon Books, 1996.
[34] A. Gerschenkron Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962.
[35] T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979.
[36] R.B. Collier and D. Collier, Shaping the Political Arena, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1991.
[37] T.L. Karl and P.C. Schmitter, "Modes of Transition in Latin America,
Southern and Eastern Europe," International Social Science Journal,
Vol.43, 1991, pp. 269-284.
[38] T Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan, New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1997.
[39] S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and
Voter Alignments: An Introduction," in: Party Systems and Voter
Alignments, S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan, Eds., New York: Free Press,
1967, pp. 1-64.
[40] R.B. Collier, "Combining Alternative Perspectives: Internal Trajectories
versus External Influences as Explanations of Latin American Politics in
the 1940s," Comparative Politics, Vol.26, No.1, 1993, pp. 1-29.
[41] K. Thelen, "How Institutions Evolve. Insight from Comparative-
Historical Analysis," in: Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social
Sciences, J. Mahoney and D. Rueschemeyer, Eds., Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp.208-240.
[42] P.J. DiMaggio and W.W. Powell "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional
Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields," in:
The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, W.W. Powell and
P.J. DiMaggio, Eds., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp.41-
62.
[43] W.R. Scott and J.W. Meyer "The Rise of Training Programs in Firms
and Agencies," in: Institutional Environments and Organizations:
Structural Complexity and Individualism, W.R. Scott and J.W. Meyer,
Eds., Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1994, pp. 228-254.
[44] N. Fligstein, "The Structural Transformation of American Industry," in:
The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, W.W. Powell and
P.J. DiMaggio, Eds., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp.
311-336.
[45] M.L. Katz and C. Shapiro "Technology Adoption in the Presence of
Network Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 94, 1986,
pp. 822-841.
[46] U. Witt, "ÔÇ×Lock-in" vs. ÔÇ×Critical Masses" - Industrial Change under
Network Externalities," International Journal of Industrial
Organization, Vol. 15, 1997, pp. 753-773.
[47] M.A. Cusumano, Y. Mylonadis, and R.S. Rosenbloom, "Strategic
Manoeuvring and Mass-Market Dynamics: The Triumph of VHS over
Beta," Business History Review, Vol. 6, 1992, pp. 51-94.
[48] G. Alexander, "Institutions, Path Dependence, and Democratic
Consolidation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 13, No.3, 2001, pp.
249-270.
[49] J. Beyer, ÔÇÿBeyond the Gradualism-Big Bang Dichotomy - The
Sequencing of Reforms and its Impact on GDP," in: Successful
Transitions, J. Beyer, J. Wielgohs, and H. Wiesenthal, Eds., Baden-
Baden: Nomos, 2001.
[50] P.L. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, New
York: Doubleday, 1966.
@article{"International Journal of Business, Human and Social Sciences:56340", author = "Jürgen Beyer", title = "The Same or Not the Same - On the Variety of Mechanisms of Path Dependence", abstract = "In association with path dependence, researchers often
talk of institutional “lock-in", thereby indicating that far-reaching
path deviation or path departure are to be regarded as exceptional
cases. This article submits the alleged general inclination for stability
of path-dependent processes to a critical review. The different
reasons for path dependence found in the literature indicate that
different continuity-ensuring mechanisms are at work when people
talk about path dependence (“increasing returns", complementarity,
sequences etc.). As these mechanisms are susceptible to fundamental
change in different ways and to different degrees, the path
dependence concept alone is of only limited explanatory value. It is
therefore indispensable to identify the underlying continuity-ensuring
mechanism as well if a statement-s empirical value is to go beyond
the trivial, always true “history matters".", keywords = "path dependence, increasing returns, historicalinstitutionalism, lock-in.", volume = "4", number = "3", pages = "203-11", }
