Page - (000217) - in Knowledge and Networks

211 “effective restoration of a choice situation” (Sydow et al., 2009, p. 702) across orga- nizational and industrial boundaries alike. Compared to early experience with platforming in other countries (see Lazzeretti et al., 2010, pp. 31–34 for a review), the German encounter with electromobility seems significantly more burdened with issues of technological, institutional, and organizational path dependence. It also has—at least potentially—much greater socioeconomic scope and relevance. The two metropolitan electromobility regions we have investigated, Stuttgart and Berlin, are economically essential, though for different reasons. At the same time, the technological and institutional breakthrough needed there is more challenging than in others regions, not least because the Stuttgart and Berlin regional platforms established in the shadow of the NPE are, unsurprisingly, more diverse in their actors, activities, resources, and relations. The coordinative challenges facing the regional actors before the desired cross- fertilization is likely to materialize are correspondingly difficult. Despite successful steps toward both the preformation and formation phases in the development of the new knowledge path, it is much too early to say whether a new path really will form and to question the existence of the old. Conclusions and Directions Starting necessarily from a focal region’s existing knowledge base, platforming is commonly understood as a more combinative than cumulative and more generative than reproductive strategy that uses the related variety of agents, activities, resources, and relations to develop locally adapted solutions designed to avoid premature rigidity. In this regard platforming may complement traditional cluster policies rather than constitute a postcluster policy on its own. As long as cluster approaches do not incorporate additional ideas about related variety, platforming may serve as an effective antivenom to present cluster policies that reflect too little concern with the benefits of having diversity and the impact of rigidity that is too early. But can a platforming strategy actually be used to break an established knowl- edge path such as the one related to the traditional powertrain technology driven by the internal combustion engine and embedded in a well-adapted organizational and institutional infrastructure that is itself characterized by path dependencies? To answer this question we examined the recent electromobility initiative in Germany, launched in response to global warming caused by high carbon emissions, and boosted in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008. The case of the National Platform for Electromobility, which was introduced by the German gov- ernment in 2010 and analyzed at the national level and in terms of two very different metropolitan regions, provided an excellent opportunity to inquire into the potential of platforming to unlock path dependencies. We focused on the early stages of knowledge-path formation, drawing on theo- retical insights into path dependence, path-breaking, platforming, and the role of FCEs in this strategy. We also used detailed data from two embedded and starkly 10 Platforming for Path-Breaking