Emerging Technologies and Waiting Games

Abstract

While nanotechnologies are expected to generate wonderful benefits for food packaging, there is reluctance in the uptake of these promises. Still, things are changing and there are dedicated attempts – by institutional entrepreneurs – to shape future embedding of these new technologies. Thus one can examine the evolution of sectoral changes before the actual introduction of new and emerging technologies, which is relevant for studies on emerging technologies and industrial change processes. The main question of this paper is how institutional entrepreneurship linking up with emerging nanotechnologies in the food packaging sector has evolved and contributed to changes at the sectoral level. To do so, I mapped instances of institutional entrepreneurship and constructed a narrative of the evolution of these initiatives, taking a broad view of institutional entrepreneurship-in-context. I found a pattern of a succession of waves of initiatives which contributed to an evolving patchwork of rules and practices. This patchwork will, eventually, shape societal embedding of nanotechnologies in the food packaging sector.