Paper short abstract:

This paper studies ambiguous or flexible regulation in the context of emerging technologies. The focus lies on how technology developers, regulators and early users employ framing to strategically influence the co-evolution of technologies, regulation and use practices.

Paper long abstract:

Emerging technologies are characterized by a high level of uncertainty. Apart from the technological set-up, there is flexibility in terms of supporting infrastructure, networks of actors and market demand. One of the dimensions of new technologies that needs articulation is the regulatory embedding. Since technologies are ill-defined and as such not easy to categorize in a class of products or technologies, regulation are said to often lag behind. Recent examples in commercial genetic testing and ride-sharing services showed the problematic interaction between innovation and regulation.

For technology developers and companies such institutional uncertainty is problematic in the sense that they hope for rules that they can anticipate on and that form a level playing field for them and their competitors. At the same time, the companies can, through strategic framing, try to influence the formation of regulation. The active participation of such 'institutional entrepreneurs' is not limited to companies, but also crucially engages with early and anticipated users of technologies.

This paper focuses on the emergence of innovation, regulation and use practices and the relationships between these three aspects. I follow the strategic framings of the actors involved and investigate what role strategic framing plays in the co-evolution of innovation, regulation and use practices. Using document analysis, interview data and media analysis, I constructed histories of a case in off-label drug use, i.e. applying drugs outside the licensed indication area, and genomics. Based on the history timelines and related events and statements, I conducted a discourse analysis.