The purposeful governance of technology discontinuation: an explorative study on the discontinuation of the incandescent light bulb in the EU

TL;DRAbstract

Innovation and technological progress are often associated with the introduction and use of new and emerging technologies. The parallel process of technology discontinuation as a counterforce of innovation is often neglected in literature. In this thesis, the discontinuation of technology is approached as a distinctive part of technological change and innovation. The focus of this thesis is on technology discontinuation as a dedicated way to stimulate innova-tion. The goal is to conduct an explorative study to contribute to a better understanding of the way the discontinuation policies are used in a purposeful way to govern innovation. A recent example of a discontinuation policy is the phasing-out of the incandescent light bulb (ILB) in the EU. In 2009, an EU regulation was implemented for the gradual discontinuation of ILBs and other inefficient domestic lighting. This discontinuation policy is used as case-study to do an explorative inquiry. This explorative study did a qualitative

Chat with Paper

AI Agents for this Paper