Balancing Coordination and Diversity: Technology Development under Network Effects
Speaker
Abstract
| We examine the role of supply-side network effects and technology development in the emergence of de facto standards. By simulating de facto standard setting as coevolutionary technological search, we contribute to a better understanding of the socially optimal organization of technology development in environments characterized by network effects. We find that network effects and technological complexity generate conflicting demands on search coordination and diversity. Further, coordination of choices is found to sometimes accelerate, rather than control, the process of premature lock-in to inferior technological solutions. |
| Contact information: |
| Dr. K. Dittrich |
