ABSTRACT
The concept ofpath dependence, originating in Arthur's (1989) and David's (1985) studies ofhow past actions affect specific technological trajectories, offers a welcome opportunity to reassess long... standing issues and debates, across and within disciplines, concerning the role and importance ofhistory and temporality. Although the questions raised by this topic are not new, the combination of recent developments in the hard sciences (e.g., chaos theory) and the theoretical extensions of concepts in the social sciences (e.g., path creation), with their important application to technological tra... jectories, invite a broader inquiry. In this chapter, we assess what these new perspectives contribute to, and can learn from, disciplines and subfields that have long considered many of the same issues. We also consider the triadic reciprocal relationship between path creation, path dependence, and path destruction. In doing so, we suggest a more process... oriented ex... amination ofthe paths accompanying knowledge vectors and technological trajectories.
