The DOI matches its Crossref record; 10 of the 10 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Niches in evolutionary theories of technical change: A critical survey of the literature
Open accessAbstract
In this article, the use of the niche concept for explaining radical technical change is explored. Contributions of various strands of literatures are elaborated and systematized in a taxonomy. Radical change or technological discontinuity is defined as the establishment of a new sociotechnical regime. Sociotechnical regimes carry and store rules for how to produce, use and regulate specific technologies. They perform the task of genes and define the boundary between technological species. It is proposed that radical change is generated by four different evolutionary mechanisms and patterns: natural selection, punctuated equilibrium, market niche selection, and technological niche selection. In each pattern, a different type of niche is implicated in the change process. The difference between niches results from differentiating between two dimensions: (1) whether niches are internal or external to the prevailing sociotechnical regime; (2) whether rules for design and use of a specific technology are stable or unstable within the niche.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Mayr, E. (1963) · doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674865327 · Cited by 10,175
Geels, F. W. (2002) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/s0048-7333(02)00062-8 · Cited by 7,275
Self-citationTechnological paradigms and technological trajectories
Dosi, G. (1982) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/0048-7333(82)90016-6 · Cited by 6,685
Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways
Geels, F. W., & Schot, J. (2007) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/j.respol.2007.01.003 · Cited by 5,245
Self-citationFrom sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems
Geels, F. W. (2004) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/j.respol.2004.01.015 · Cited by 4,098
Self-citationBlind variation and selective retentions in creative thought as in other knowledge processes
Campbell, D. T. (1960) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/h0040373 · Cited by 2,329
The slow pace of rapid technological change: gradualism and punctuation in technological change
LEVINTHAL, D. A. (1998) · Industrial and Corporate Change · doi:10.1093/icc/7.2.217 · Cited by 452
Schot, J. (1998) · History and Technology · doi:10.1080/07341519808581928 · Cited by 227
Self-citationThe state and technical innovation: a case-study of the electrical vehicle in France
Callon, M. (1980) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/0048-7333(80)90032-3 · Cited by 223
Getting round the lock-in in electricity generating systems: the example of the gas turbine
Islas, J. (1997) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/s0048-7333(96)00912-2 · Cited by 77
Cited by
Ontologies, socio-technical transitions (to sustainability), and the multi-level perspective
Geels, F. W. (2010) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/j.respol.2010.01.022 · Cited by 1,718
Self-citationGeels, F. W. (2020) · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2019.119894 · Cited by 426
Self-citationSustainability experiments in Asia: innovations shaping alternative development pathways?
Berkhout, F., Verbong, G., Wieczorek, A. J., Raven, R., Lebel, L., & Bai, X. (2010) · Environmental Science & Policy · doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2010.03.010 · Cited by 272
Ollivier, G., Magda, D., Mazé, A., Plumecocq, G., & Lamine, C. (2018) · Ecology and Society · doi:10.5751/es-09952-230205 · Cited by 144
Assessing and comparing German and UK transition policies for electric mobility
Mazur, C., Contestabile, M., Offer, G. J., & Brandon, N. P. (2015) · Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions · doi:10.1016/j.eist.2014.04.005 · Cited by 99
Metadata
- Authors
- Schot, J., & Geels, F. W.
- Venue
- Journal of Evolutionary Economics
- Published
- 2007-03-03
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 605-622
- ISSN
- 0936-9937 (ISSN-L)
- 1432-1386
- OpenAlex
- W1569479704
- Cited by
- 397
- References
- 10
- FWCI
- 38.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Niches in evolutionary theories of technical change: A critical survey of the literature. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1007/s00191-007-0057-5
- The paper
- Schot, J., & Geels, F. W. (2007). Niches in evolutionary theories of technical change: A critical survey of the literature. Journal of Evolutionary Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-007-0057-5
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.