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Research Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/respol

Multi-mode standardisation: A critical review and a research agenda

Paul Moritz Wiegmann

a,⁎

, Henk J. de Vries

a,b

, Knut Blind

c,d

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Chair of Standardisation, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Section Economics of Technology and Innovation, Jaﬀalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, The

Netherlands

Technische Universität Berlin, Chair of Innovation Economics, MAR 2-5, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Germany

Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems, Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31, 10589 Berlin, Germany

ARTICLE INFO

Keywords:

Standardization

Committee-based standardization

Standard battles

Regulation

Government-based standardization

Multi-mode standardization

ABSTRACT

Standardisation is key to shaping new technologies and supporting major ongoing trends, such as the increased

importance of platforms, developing ‘smart’technologies and innovating large-scale complex systems.

Standardisation plays a key role in shaping the rules that govern these developments and their eﬀects on society.

Due to the large variety of actors involved in these trends, the associated standardisation processes are likely to

involve all three modes of standardisation identiﬁed in the literature: committee-based, market-based and

government-based. This multi-mode standardisation challenges the theoretical views on standardisation which

predominantly focus on one of the modes. In this paper, we review the existing literatures on individual modes

and on multi-mode standardisation. By recombining existing evidence, we generate new insights into multi-

mode standardisation processes. These ﬁrst insights relate to the contributions that each mode can make to such

processes’outcomes and suggest that their impact depends on factors, such as their initiation’s timing and the

institutional context in which the standardisation process occurs. Moreover, we consider the conditions under

which actors can launch each mode. Based on our observations, we formulate an agenda for future research to

obtain a better understanding of multi-mode standardisation. We oﬀer recommendations for industry actors,

NGOs, researchers and policy makers involved in shaping technological and societal change.

1. Introduction

Standardisation can be critical in determining a technology’s success

and often plays a vital role in supporting major technological and so-

cietal trends. Many important ongoing developments, such as the

transformation towards a platform economy, making things ‘smart’and

innovating large, complex systems rely on standardisation (e.g.

Featherston et al., 2016; Geels, 2004; Ho and O’Sullivan, 2017). Stan-

dardisation’s key aim is limiting the number of solutions when using

many diﬀerent options simultaneously is ineﬀective and ineﬃcient.

One would expect the standardisation world to adopt this approach to

its own processes and ensure that standardisation itself is ‘standard’.

However, closer inspection reveals that this is not the case.

Current literature is organised around three modes of standardisa-

tion: committee-based standardisation, sometimes referred to as de-jure

standardisation (e.g. Jain, 2012; Narayanan and Chen, 2012); market-

based standardisation, sometimes referred to as de-facto standardisa-

tion (e.g. Schilling, 2002; Suarez, 2004); and government-based stan-

dardisation (e.g. Büthe and Mattli, 2010). Extant literature describes

cases where these modes jointly contributed to the ﬁnal outcome (e.g.

Gao, 2014; Garud et al., 2002; von Burg, 2001), and shows that many

impactful standards (such as the ISO shipping container, GSM or

Ethernet) emerged in multi-mode standardisation processes, but pro-

vides limited theoretical insights into these processes. As we argue in

Section 2.1, multi-mode standardisation is likely to become increasingly

important in the future. Most (if not all) major ongoing trends, which

shape technology and society, bring together previously unrelated sta-

keholders from diﬀerent backgrounds (e.g. in terms of industry sector

and geography) (e.g. Kenney and Zysman, 2016; Porter and

Heppelmann, 2014). As they use standardisation to facilitate and co-

ordinate these developments, they are likely to bring diﬀerent stan-

dardisation ‘cultures’and strategies to the table and employ the modes

of standardisation that they are familiar with, resulting in a large

number of multi-mode processes.

Despite this increasing importance of multi-mode standardisation, it

has received surprisingly little attention in research. The predominant

view in the literature (e.g. Leiponen, 2008; Schilling, 2002) assumes

that every standardisation process relies on only one of these three

modes. Although many historical cases (e.g. the market battle between

VHS and Betamax or ISO 9001’s committee-based development) are in

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2017.06.002

Received 15 April 2015; Received in revised form 3 June 2017; Accepted 3 June 2017

⁎

Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected] (P.M. Wiegmann).

Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

Available online 05 July 2017

MARK

line with this view, it leaves an increasing share of cases unexplained

(Section 2). In this review paper, we make four contributions towards

generating a better understanding of these trends and the associated

standardisation processes. First, we review existing literature and de-

rive the three ideal-typical modes of standardisation that drive the

emergence of standards (Section 3). Second, we summarise available

theory on multi-mode standardisation and identify its gaps (also Section

3). Third, we recombine evidence from existing literature to make some

ﬁrst steps in formulating additional theory on multi-mode standardi-

sation (Section 4). Fourth, we propose an agenda for research which

can add to a more complete understanding of the phenomenon (Section

5.1). Based on these ﬁndings, we also oﬀer recommendations, based on

the currently available evidence, for industry actors, NGOs, researchers

and policymakers in standard developing organisations (SDOs), in-

dustry associations and communities of practice involved in shaping

major technological trends (Section 5.2).

2. Trends in standardisation

Standardisation aims to resolve situations where involved actors

prefer a common solution to a problem, but have not yet agreed which

option to choose. For example, this can often be observed during the

development of technical speciﬁcations for new technologies with

network eﬀects. Such network eﬀects mean that the technology’s ben-

eﬁts for an individual actor increase along with the number of others

using the same technology. The conﬂicts arising between actors sup-

porting diﬀerent solutions have been modelled game-theoretically as

‘battle-of-the sexes’games (see e.g. Belleﬂamme, 2002; Besen and

Farrell, 1994; Farrell and Saloner, 1988; Mattli and Büthe, 2003). These

battles can result in wars of attrition where actors block agreements in

the hope that the other side concedes (Farrell and Saloner, 1988; Farrell

and Simcoe, 2012). To establish a common solution, standardisation

pursues coordination between actors by developing solutions which are

then implemented by all of them (Farrell and Saloner, 1988; Farrell and

Simcoe, 2012). We group the literature on processes for establishing

common solutions around three modes of standardisation in which such

coordination occurs: (1) committee-based, (2) market-based and (3)

government-based (see Section 3for a detailed discussion).

2.1. Complexity in standardisation

We observe several empirical cases of widely used and impactful

standards emerging from complex processes, where actors use diverse

strategies to inﬂuence the outcomes, involving multiple modes of

standardisation (see Table 1). Moreover, we expect the role of multi-

mode standardisation to increase in the future in line with several major

trends which underlie the increasing digitalisation of society: large

scale innovation of complex systems, the development of smart tech-

nologies, the increasing importance of platforms, growing demands for

sustainability and responsibility in global supply chains, and globali-

sation in general. All of these developments bring together a large

variety of previously unrelated actors, and rely on coordination be-

tween these actors to be able to function. Pursuing these changes is

beyond the capabilities of individual ﬁrms and even industries, re-

quiring actors to interact and/or cooperate across sectors, and exposing

them to new sets of stakeholders (Porter and Heppelmann, 2014).

Kenney and Zysman (2016) argue that these trends can even aﬀect

actors from all parts of society and require them to ﬁnd common so-

lutions, not only to technical questions, but also to non-technical issues.

Standardisation can be important in establishing these solutions and

getting them accepted (e.g. Featherston et al., 2016; Geels, 2004; Ho

and O’Sullivan, 2017; Schmidt and Werle, 1998). This implies that

standardisation is not only relevant to industry, but also to many other

stakeholders. For example, NGOs play an increasingly important role in

standardisation (Boström and Tamm Hallström, 2010). The EU’s Hor-

izon 2020 programme for funding research projects speciﬁcally

considers participation in standardisation as a research output

(European Commission, 2011a, 2011b; European Parliament and

Council of the European Union, 2013). Germany’s government also

operates a funding programme for scientists who work on incorporating

their research ﬁndings into standards (BMWi, 2016).

As the involved actors develop standards to support these trends or

cope with them, they are likely to base their approaches on standar-

disation ‘cultures’that they are familiar with. These diﬀer greatly. For

example, the ICT sector has a standardisation ‘culture’where consortia

and markets play a big role, whereas other sectors rely to a larger de-

gree on committee-based standardisation (e.g. Blind and Gauch, 2008).

The degree to which actors in standardisation rely on collaboration or

competition also varies widely across countries (Büthe and Mattli,

2011; Tate, 2001). The role of government in standardisation diﬀers as

well. The government plays a deﬁning role in Chinese standardisation

(e.g. Chuang, 2016; Gao et al., 2014; Gao, 2014), whereas the “New

Approach”in Europe aims to limit the inﬂuence of government on

technical details and depends on private stakeholders contributing their

expertise to standardisation (Borraz, 2007). This implies that standar-

disation processes, which bring together the diverse actors who are

involved in shaping these trends, will rely on multiple modes. Stan-

dardisation of the Internet of Things and smart manufacturing is an

example of an area driven jointly by players from the ICT ﬁeld and

traditional manufacturing industries and involves elements of all three

standardisation modes (see Ho and O’Sullivan, 2017; Lu et al., 2016).

Also, national standardisation strategies outline the relationship be-

tween government and the other modes of standardisation, for example

in China (CNIS, 2016), the Republic of Korea (Choi, 2016), the USA

(United States Standards Strategy Committee, 2015), the UK (CBI et al.,

n.d.), Germany (Deutsche Bundesregierung, 2009); France (Evrard,

2014), Austria (Österreichische Bundesregierung, 2016), and Russia

(RF Ministry of Industry Energy, 2008).

Given the increasing complexity in standardisation and the im-

portance of multi-mode standardisation for ongoing technical and so-

cietal developments, it is a phenomenon that warrants further in-

vestigation.

2.2. The predominant view on standardisation

Much of the existing literature assumes that standards are devel-

oped and diﬀused strictly within the boundaries of one mode (e.g.

Belleﬂamme, 2002; Blind et al., 2017; Chiao et al., 2007; Farrell and

Simcoe, 2012; Greenstein, 1992; Leiponen, 2008; Rosen et al., 1988;

Schilling, 2002; Timmermans and Epstein, 2010), and thus treats the

modes of standardisation as mutually exclusive. Typologies of stan-

dardisation are built on this premise and classify cases into the diﬀerent

modes without considering the possibility that some standardisation

processes may involve elements of several modes (e.g. Botzem and

Dobusch, 2012;Büthe and Mattli, 2011; p. 19; Büthe and Mattl, 2010;

David and Greenstein, 1990). Following from this, the literature on

success factors in standardisation is divided into diﬀerent streams of

research. The ﬁrst stream identiﬁes ways to inﬂuence processes within

standard developing organisations (SDOs) (e.g. Jain, 2012; Leiponen,

2008; Mattli and Büthe, 2003). Another stream focuses on success

factors for winning market battles (e.g. den Uijl, 2015; Schilling, 2002;

Suarez, 2004; van de Kaa et al., 2011; van den Ende et al., 2012). Work

on how actors can successfully inﬂuence government-based standardi-

sation is scarcer, although cases have been described (Gilmore et al.,

2006) and success factors for lobbying in general (e.g. Bouwen, 2002;

Klüver, 2011; Mahoney, 2007) are likely to apply.

This theoretical assumption of standardisation processes taking

place within one mode’s boundaries is supported by many empirical

cases. For example, ISO 9001 originated in the committee-based mode

(Tamm Hallström, 2004). Examples of the market-based mode include

the battle between AC and DC electricity in the 19th century (David,

1992; David and Bunn, 1988) and VHS vs. Betamax (Cusumano et al.,

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1371

1992; Rosenbloom and Cusumano, 1987). Examples of purely govern-

ment-based standardisation can be found in Latin American milk safety

standards (Farina et al., 2005) and the French government’sdeﬁnition

of standard measurements in the 18th century (Rosen et al., 1988). In

addition, the standardisation systems of the former Soviet Union (USSR

State Standards, 1976) and China before the mid-1980s (Chuang, 2016)

were built entirely on government-based standardisation.

Although there are thus cases supporting the focus on single modes,

relying on this view when analysing multi-mode standardisation cases,

such as the ones presented in Table 1, means treating elements of ad-

ditional modes as external inﬂuences. For example, Tamm Hallström

(2004) and Büthe and Mattli (2011) view government activities in ac-

counting standards as external to the standardisation process taking

place in committees. This approach may constrain a full understanding

of such cases, because multi-mode standardisation is characterised by

dynamic interactions between modes. In the remainder of this paper,

we review the available literature that can help us understand these

dynamics and recombine it to generate new insights. We also identify

the limitations of existing evidence, and outline an agenda for research

to obtain a more complete understanding of multi-mode standardisa-

tion processes.

3. Modes of standardisation

We now take a closer look at the three modes of standardisation

which represent ideal-typical models of standardisation processes. In

Section 3.1, we brieﬂy review the literature on these ideal-typical

modes to highlight their deﬁning features and provide the conceptual

background for the rest of the paper. In Section 3.2, we review extant

research on the interactions between these modes, and deviations from

these ideal-types. As indicated in Fig. 1, this body of work focuses on

speciﬁc pairs of modes. Because standardisation processes are hetero-

geneous, we also discuss the extent to which the modes of standardi-

sation are likely to form the basis for standardisation processes across

this diverse domain (Section 3.3).

Table 1

Overview of cases involving more than one mode of standardisation.

Combination of Modes Example Cases

Markets and Committees •Ethernet vs. other LAN technologies (von Burg, 2001)

•Oﬃce document formats (Blind, 2011; Egyedi and Koppenhol, 2010)

•Web-browsers (de Vries et al., 2008)

•DVD (Vercoulen and van Wegberg, 1998)

•Competition between internet telephony technologies (Vercoulen and van Wegberg, 1998)

•Competition between 2G mobile telecommunications technologies in the USA (Funk and Methe, 2001; Gandal et al., 2003;

Pelkmans, 2001)

•USB vs. FireWire (van den Ende et al., 2012)

•Wi-Fi vs. HomeRF (van den Ende et al., 2012)

•Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD (den Uijl and de Vries, 2013)

•Competition between diﬀerent standards for Unix operating systems (Axelrod et al., 1995)

•Standardisation of LED-lighting technology (LED Inside, 2010)

Governments and Committees •GSM (Bekkers, 2001; Pelkmans, 2001)

•TD-SCDMA in China (Gao et al., 2014; Gao, 2014)

•TCP/IP (Townes, 2012)

•ISO Shipping Container (Egyedi, 2000; Egyedi and Spirco, 2011)

•European container sizes for intermodal transport (Meyer, 2012)

•Standards for digital and high-deﬁnition television (Meyer, 2012)

•Requirements for medical devices in the EU (Frank, 2001)

•Energy performance requirements for buildings in the Netherlands (de Vries and Verhagen, 2016)

•European “New Approach”(Borraz, 2007)

Governments and Markets •Competition between railway track gauges (Puﬀert, 2002, 2000)

•Global market battle between 2G mobile telecommunications technologies (Funk and Methe, 2001)

•ADA programming language vs. alternatives (Rosen et al., 1988)

Markets, Committees and Governments •Competition between international accounting standards (Büthe and Mattli, 2011; Hail et al., 2010; Tamm Hallström, 2004)

•Internet protocols (Abbate, 2001)

•CSR and environmental management systems (Delmas and Montiel, 2008; Moratis and Tatang Widjaja, 2014; Wätzold et al., 2001)

•Standards for Internet of Things and smart manufacturing (Lu et al., 2016)

•Plugs for charging electric vehicles in Europe (Bakker et al., 2015)

•Food quality and safety standards (Trienekens and Zuurbier, 2008)

•Antifouling paint for ships (Thompson Clarke Shipping Pty, 2017 ThoThompson Clarke Shipping Pty. Ltd. et al., n.d.)

•Competition between units of measurement –SI and Imperial Measurement systems (Glazebrook, 1931; National Industry

Conference Board, 1921)

Büthe and Mattli (2011) and Tamm Hallström (2004) ignore the role of markets in this case. Hail et al.’s (2010) case description focuses on the inﬂuence of governments and markets

while neglecting committees.

Although these papers do not explicitly discuss committee-based standardisation, the presence of an ISO standard (ISO 26000) implies that committees played a role in this case.

Fig. 1. Literature on standardisation.

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1372

3.1. Setting the background of ideal-typical modes of standardisation

Based on literature, we identify three ideal-typical modes of stan-

dardisation: committee-based, market-based and government-based.

These modes have three deﬁning characteristics: (1) the mechanisms

which result in the coordination that standardisation aims for and de-

scribe the fundamental relationships between actors in the process

(cooperation, competition, hierarchy); (2) the main actors involved

(private or public); and (3) the timing in the process (development or

diﬀusion –see below) when actors intervene and coordination occurs.

These three deﬁning characteristics lead to two additional distin-

guishing features of the ideal-typical modes: (1) individual actors’

avenues of inﬂuence on the process’s results and (2) the degree to which

standard development is inclusive or exclusive (see Botzem and

Dobusch, 2012). We summarise these features in Table 2 and explain

them in more detail in Sections 3.1.1–3.1.3.

Timing refers to the clearly discernible phases of standardisation

processes (e.g. de Vries, 2010; Lyytinen and King, 2006; Suarez, 2004).

We classify these phases in two overarching categories (in line with

Botzem and Dobusch, 2012; Weitzel et al., 2006). (1) standard devel-

opment when solutions that are intended as a standard are created, and

(2) standard diﬀusion which includes spreading information about a

new standard, encouraging its application in use, and its actual ac-

ceptance and implementation (see Rogers, 2003). Depending on the

mode of standardisation, coordination can occur in either of these

phases (see Table 2).

3.1.1. Characteristics of committee-based standardisation

Standardisation through cooperation usually takes place in com-

mittees of SDOs (e.g. the International Organization for Standardization

(ISO) or ASTM International), consortia (e.g. the Blu-Ray Disc

Association), professional associations (e.g. IEEE), trade associations

(e.g. IATA), or open source initiatives.

There, stakeholders collaborate

to deﬁne standards which propose one solution in the form of an ap-

proved document (Blind, 2006, 2002; Büthe and Mattli, 2010;

Gallagher, 2007; Hanseth and Monteiro, 1997; Narayanan and Chen,

2012; Rosen et al., 1988; Schmidt and Werle, 1998; Timmermans and

Epstein, 2010)–although the exact process varies among standardi-

sation organisations (e.g. Tate, 2001). Actors belonging to the private

sphere dominate committees (Büthe and Mattli, 2011, 2010) and any

interested stakeholder can join these committees in their ideal-typical

form, making the process ‘inclusive’(Botzem and Dobusch, 2012).

In terms of timing, coordination in the committee-based mode takes

place during standard development. If diﬀerent options are proposed,

they are evaluated before a standard is approved and diﬀused (Jain,

2012). SDOs aim to deﬁne only one solution for each problem –a goal

they reach often but not always (Blind, 2011; Egyedi and Koppenhol,

2010). Using standards that were developed in committees is voluntary

(e.g. de Vries, 1999 Mattli and Büthe, 2003). Economic beneﬁts, such as

reduced transaction costs (e.g. Blind, 2004, 2002; Swann, 2010), and

various market demands (Brunsson et al., 2012) are important reasons

for their implementation. Other reasons for their implementation lie in

Table 2

Ideal-typical modes of standardisation –characteristics (source: authors’own summary of literature).

Committee-Based Standardisation Market-Based Standardisation Government-Based Standardisation

Relationships between

actors

Coordination

mechanism

Coordination through cooperation between

stakeholders. Standards are developed in

committees and only diﬀused if members

agree on a common solution.

Solutions intended as a standard can be developed by

anyone. Coordination through competition between

solutions in the market, leading often (but not always)

to one de-facto standard.

Solutions intended as a standard can come

from various sources. Coordination through

governments using their hierarchical position

to impose these standards’use on others.

Timing of coordination Coordination takes place during standard

development –only one solution is chosen to

enter the market.

Coordination takes place during diﬀusion –diﬀerent

standards are developed and compete with each other.

Governments can intervene in development

or mandate using an already developed

standard.

Main actors driving the

standardisation

process

Predominantly private Predominantly private Predominantly public

Stakeholders cooperating in committees; SDOs

providing a platform for standard

development.

Individual market actors inﬂuencing the outcome of the

market competition with their actions.

Governmental bodies developing standards

and/or enforcing their use.

Avenues of inﬂuence Participating in committees to inﬂuence

standards’contents.

Engaging in the market to inﬂuence battles’outcomes

by inﬂuencing decisive factors.

Inﬂuencing government decision-making

through lobbying or parliamentary

representatives.

Inclusiveness in

standard

development

High, any interested party can join a

committee.

Varies, some standard development venues are open;

access to others is restricted.

Medium, lobbying may require high eﬀort.

Examples of empirical

research

Leiponen (2008),Mattli and Büthe (2003),

Tamm Hallström and Boström (2010),Tate

(2001)

den Uijl (2015),Schilling (2002) Farina et al. (2005),Schmidt and Werle

(1998)

Characterisations of open source communities in the literature (e.g. de Vries et al.,

2008; West, 2007; West and O’Mahony, 2008) suggest that they exhibit all deﬁning

features of venues for committee-based standardisation (see Table 2 and this section),

even though they may not describe their work as ‘standardisation activities’(see e.g.

Open Source Initiative, 2007). In addition, they also have some characteristics which set

them apart from more ‘traditional’SDOs, e.g. in terms of intellectual property rules which

often allow actors to ‘fork’code to create new open source initiatives, or in terms of the

length of development cycles. These diﬀerences mean that standards, which emerge from

open source initiatives, are often more ‘ﬂuid’than those that are developed in traditional

SDOs.

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1373

the path taken in standard development (Botzem and Dobusch, 2012;

Markus et al., 2006; Tamm Hallström, 2004)–e.g. the cooperative,

inclusive development process can give standards legitimacy which

supports their implementation (Botzem and Dobusch, 2012; Tamm

Hallström and Boström, 2010). However, implementation of standards

is not self-evident and may be hindered by several barriers (de Vries

et al., 2009).

Despite this, studies that investigate committee-based standards’

diﬀusion are scarce compared to research on their development. Since

coordination takes place before a standard enters the market in com-

mittee-based standardisation, literature focuses on standard develop-

ment in these organisations (see e.g. Belleﬂamme, 2002; Goluchowicz

and Blind, 2011; Mattli and Büthe, 2003) and often sees a standard’s

release as the end-point of the process.

3.1.2. Characteristics of market-based standardisation

Literature on market-based standardisation describes how battles

between diﬀerent technologies result in de-facto standards.

These

technologies and their proponents compete in the market until an

equilibrium is reached (Gallagher, 2007; Narayanan and Chen, 2012;

Rosen et al., 1988; Schilling, 2002; Schmidt and Werle, 1998; Shapiro

and Varian, 1999; Suarez, 2004; Tassey, 2000; Timmermans and

Epstein, 2010; van de Kaa et al., 2011). Such battles usually result in

one solution emerging as de-facto standard (Cusumano et al., 1992; de

Vries, 2006; de Vries and Hendrikse, 2001; Schilling, 2002) due to a

bandwagon eﬀect (Belleﬂamme, 2002; Delcamp and Leiponen, 2014;

Farrell and Simcoe, 2012; Geroski, 2000). However, there are also cases

where several standards continue existing in parallel and where no

coordination is reached (de Vries et al., 2011; Techatassanasoontorn

and Suo, 2011).

Competition during the diﬀusion phase, i.e. after several solutions

intended as a standard have been developed, is thus the driving force

for coordination between actors in market-based standardisation.

This

competition is predominantly driven by actors from the private sphere

(Büthe and Mattli, 2011, pp. 25–29; Büthe and Mattli, 2010). Because

standards can be developed by anyone and are often proprietary, in-

clusiveness in standard development is generally regarded as low in

market-based standardisation (Botzem and Dobusch, 2012; Egyedi,

2003).

3.1.3. Characteristics of government-based standardisation

Governments can use their hierarchical position to intervene in

standardisation, and regulation is an important way of developing and

diﬀusing standards (Khemani and Shapiro, 1993).

Governments can

impose mandatory use of standards that were developed elsewhere

(Rosen et al., 1988), or can also develop standards themselves and

make their use mandatory (Blind et al., 2017;Büthe and Mattli, 2011;

pp. 20–23; Büthe and Mattli, 2010; Farina et al., 2005; Narayanan and

Chen, 2012; Schmidt and Werle, 1998; Timmermans and Epstein,

2010). Coordination in government-based standardisation can thus

occur in either of the phases, i.e. standard development or standard

diﬀusion. Contrary to committee- and market-based standardisation,

government-based standardisation is dominated by public actors who

have the authority to impose a standard’s use (Büthe and Mattli, 2011;

pp. 20–23; Büthe and Mattli, 2010). Private actors can therefore not

inﬂuence coordination directly but only through lobbying

which may

require high eﬀort and may be ineﬀective. We therefore classify gov-

ernment-based standardisation’s inclusiveness (see Botzem and

Dobusch, 2012) as medium compared to the other two modes.

Whether governments should play such a role at all in standardi-

sation is a controversial question. Blind et al. (2017) ﬁnd that such an

intervention’seﬀects on innovation depends on the degree of techno-

logical uncertainty in the market. In general, some researchers justify

government-intervention because of the beneﬁts of compatibility

compared to an alternative situation where there is no common stan-

dard (e.g. Bekkers, 2001; Funk and Methe, 2001; Pelkmans, 2001).

Others argue that avoiding competition between solutions removes the

incentive for innovation that would otherwise be needed to ensure a

solution’s competitive edge and that governments should therefore

carefully weigh the beneﬁts and costs of intervening on a case-by-case

basis (e.g. Cabral and Kretschmer, 2007; Cabral and Salant, 2014;

Gandal et al., 2003). It has therefore been proposed that some of the

ways in which government can intervene in standardisation that are

described in Section 3.2 are preferable to the ideal-typical government-

based standardisation through hierarchical means. This debate mainly

focuses on compatibility standardisation, but de Vries and Verhagen

(2016) show that government-based standardisation for energy eﬃ-

ciency can also simultaneously stimulate innovation and address soci-

etal issues. In other areas (e.g. safety or consumer information stan-

dards), government intervention may also be justiﬁed in cases of

market failure when private actors would settle on solutions which

carry negative externalities.

3.2. Existing literature on multi-mode standardisation

The modes of standardisation presented in Section 3.1 present ideal-

types of standardisation processes. However, as we argued in Section 2,

there are an increasing number of standardisation cases which are not

covered by these ideal-types. Despite this, few sources provide detailed

case descriptions which clearly show the dynamics in such cases and an

even smaller number oﬀers theory that integrates the diﬀerent modes.

Where there is theory on multi-mode standardisation, this combines

elements of pairs of modes but we are not aware of theory that in-

tegrates all three modes. We provide an overview of the literature with

detailed case descriptions and/or theoretical contributions about multi-

mode standardisation processes in Tables 3A,3B and 3C and summarise

these theoretical contributions in Sections 3.2.1–3.2.3.

3.2.1. Combinations of market-based and committee-based standardisation

When market-based and committee-based standardisation jointly

drive standardisation, elements of cooperation and competition as well

as the other characteristics of these modes (see Table 2) are combined.

Work that considers these combinations theoretically is either based on

(1) the assumption that elements of committee- and market-based

standardisation occur sequentially or (2) a dynamic interaction be-

tween elements of these modes.

The ﬁrst type is considered by Axelrod et al. (1995),Markus et al.

(2006) and van den Ende et al. (2012).Axelrod et al. (1995) observe

that solutions which compete against each other in market battles are

often developed in cooperation between actors in diﬀerent consortia.

In such standardisation processes, the number of potential solutions is

therefore ﬁrst reduced through cooperation in diﬀerent consortia before

Market mechanisms also drive the emergence of dominant designs and platforms.

Many authors see these and de-facto standards as diﬀerent concepts (den Uijl, 2015;

Gallagher, 2007) although, according to den Uijl (2015), the processes in which they

emerge are similar.

Where literature discusses standard development for the market-based mode, it

usually refers to processes in consortia, indicating some degree of overlap with the

committee-based mode −see Section 3.2.1.

According to Lessig, 2000; Lessig, 1999 idea that ‘code is law’, private actors who

deﬁne architectures for software and the internet may occupy similar hierarchical posi-

tions as governments. This is because the architectures that they develop can restrict or

encourage certain behaviour in similar ways to rules imposed by governments. Much of

what we write in this paper about government-based standardisation might therefore also

apply to these actors. However, exploring this is beyond the scope of our paper.

Lobbying has been investigated in depth from a political science perspective (e.g.

Bouwen, 2002 Klüver, 2011; Mahoney, 2007), and from the economic regulatory capture

(e.g. Dal Bó, 2006; Laﬀont and Tirole, 1991) and regulatory relief (e.g. Schmidt, 2002;

Wätzold et al., 2001) perspectives.

Following our deﬁnition of the committee-based mode, consortia can be seen as a

form of committee because they also develop standards in cooperation.

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1374

a market-battle leads to the emergence of a commonly accepted stan-

dard. In these cases, Axelrod et al. (1995) expect actors to join consortia

which are large but where only few competitors are present in order to

maximise the chances of the consortium’s solution becoming the stan-

dard while enabling actors to reap the beneﬁts of that solution. Fur-

thermore, events in a consortium’s cooperative coordination process

also aﬀect the chances of the resulting solution being selected in the

market (Markus et al., 2006; van den Ende et al., 2012).

Other work questions this sequential occurrence of both modes, and

considers a more dynamic interaction. Farrell and Saloner (1988) de-

velop a game-theoretic model to investigate the interplay between

markets and committees. In this model, actors decide whether to adopt

a solution in the market or negotiate in a committee in each round, and,

if they negotiate, whether to insist on their preferred solution or accept

the proposed alternative. When comparing this combined model to

models of pure market- or committee-based standardisation, Farrell and

Saloner (1988) ﬁnd that its payoﬀs for participants outperform those

that can be achieved in either alternative. van Wegberg (2004) ﬁnds

this only to be true when switching costs are relatively low. High

switching costs are likely to lead to purely market- or committee-based

standardisation (van Wegberg, 2004). In addition, standardisation is

more likely to include both market- and committee-based elements in

industries that are both complex and dynamic (Vercoulen and van

Wegberg, 1998). In these cases, the process can either start in the

market and involve committees in later stages or vice versa (Vercoulen

and van Wegberg, 1998).

3.2.2. Combinations of government-based and committee-based

standardisation

Cases involving elements of government-based and committee-

based standardisation combine elements of cooperation and hierarchy

as well as other characteristics of these modes (see Table 2). Literature

shows very diverse examples of cases where governments intervened in

committee-based standardisation (see Tables 1and 3B). Such inter-

ventions deviate from what would be expected under the ideal-types of

committee-based and government-based standardisation presented in

Section 3.1 and take two basic forms. (1) Government can use hier-

archical means to shape the outcome of committee-based standardisa-

tion (referred to as a ‘hard-law approach’by Meyer (2012)) and (2)

government can employ non-hierarchical means to intervene in com-

mittees (referred to as an ‘entrepreneurial approach’by Meyer (2012)),

introducing a powerful actor into the committee-based mode. Such a

powerful actor does not exist in the ideal-typical form of committee-

based standardisation and violates the expectation that governments

rely on hierarchy in standardisation.

Governments in Europe, the USA and China have all been shown to

Table 3A

Literature on the interaction between markets and committees.

Combination of

Modes

Paper Brief Summary Empirical Grounding Theory about

Multiple Modes

Geographical

Context

Industry Context

Market/Committee von Burg (2001) Ethernet case Individual case No Mainly USA IT

Garud et al. (2002) Java case Individual case No Global IT

Blind (2011),Egyedi

and Koppenhol (2010)

Oﬃce documents case Individual case No Global IT

van den Ende et al.

(2012)

USB vs. Firewire, Wi-Fi vs.

HomeRF cases

Individual cases Yes Global IT

Vercoulen and van

Wegberg (1998)

DVD & internet telephony cases Individual cases Yes Global IT, consumer

electronics, telecom

Farrell and Saloner

(1988)

Game-theoretic model of strategies

in markets and committees

n/a Yes n/a n/a

van Wegberg (2004) Economic model of interaction

between market and committees

3 case-examples to

illustrate model

Yes Global IT, consumer

electronics, telecom

Axelrod et al. (1995) Theory of actors’choice between

competing committees

Individual case Yes Global IT

Markus et al. (2006) VIS standardisation in US

residential mortgage industry

Individual case Yes USA IT

Table 3B

Literature on the interaction between governments and committees.

Combination of

Modes

Paper Brief Summary Empirical Grounding Theory about

Multiple Modes

Geographical

Context

Industry Context

Government/

Committee

Bekkers (2001) GSM case Individual case No Europe Telecom

Pelkmans (2001) GSM case Individual case No Europe Telecom

Gao (2014) TD-SCMDA case Individual case No China Telecom

Townes (2012) TCP/IP case Individual case No Mainly USA IT

Egyedi and Spirco

(2011),Egyedi (2000)

ISO shipping container case Individual case No Global Transportation

Büthe and Mattli (2011) International accounting

standards case

Individual case No Global Financial services

Tamm Hallström (2004) International accounting

standards case

Individual case No Global Financial services

NIST (2010) Results from survey among

practitioners

Survey among

experts, non-

academic

(Yes) USA none

Gao et al. (2014) TD-SCMDA case Individual case Yes China Telecom

Meyer (2012) Study of government

intervention in standardisation

Individual case Yes Europe Transportation, telecom,

Borraz (2007) New Approach Individual case Yes Europe, France None

Blind and Mangelsdorf

(2016)

Study of reasons for

participating in SDOs

Survey among

companies

Yes Germany Manufacturing

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1375

intervene in committee-based standardisation through hierarchical

means (Bekkers, 2001; Borraz, 2007; Gao et al., 2014; Meyer, 2012;

Pelkmans, 2001). When doing so, governments may support a favoured

solution (e.g. in the Chinese TD-SCDMA case (Gao et al., 2014; Gao,

2014)). Such support may even go as far as denying visas to ISO-com-

mittee delegates (Kennedy, 2006). Governments see such interventions

in standardisation as a means to promote national industries (Gao et al.,

2014; Gao, 2014). Alternatively, governments can set broad aims and

objectives where they lack the means (e.g. expertise) to reach their

goals and leave the technical details to experts in committees. An ex-

ample of this type of intervention is the European “New Approach”

where European SDOs develop standards on request of the European

Commission (Borraz, 2007). Meeting these standards gives actors a

presumption of conforming to the legislation (Borraz, 2007). Blind and

Mangelsdorf (2016) identify this type of labour division as a strong

incentive for industry actors to participate in SDOs, because it allows

them to inﬂuence the implementation of the regulation that they need

to adhere to. Meyer (2012) found such ‘hard-law’interventions with

more or less prominent hierarchical elements to have severe drawbacks.

In the cases that he studied, the prospect of a committee-based standard

being enforced as a mandatory solution mobilised actors who would

otherwise not have participated in standard development. This made it

more diﬃcult or even impossible to ﬁnd a commonly acceptable solu-

tion in these committees (Meyer, 2012).

Instead of this ‘hard-law’approach, Meyer (2012) advocates ‘en-

trepreneurial’government interventions in committee-based standar-

disation. In this second type of intervention, governmental actors can

play various roles that facilitate the cooperative coordination process.

These activities can aim to actively promote one solution in committees

and control their work to some extent (Gao et al., 2014), but may also

be of a more advisory or observing nature (NIST, 2010). Speciﬁcally,

they include placing standardisation issues on SDOs’agendas (Gao

et al., 2014; Meyer, 2012); mediating between actors in the process

(Bekkers, 2001; Gao et al., 2014; Meyer, 2012; NIST, 2010; Pelkmans,

2001); facilitating the standardisation process, e.g. by providing ﬁ-

nancial support (Gao et al., 2014; NIST, 2010); or protecting the results

of the process from contestation (Bekkers, 2001; Meyer, 2012;

Pelkmans, 2001). Furthermore, governments can also inﬂuence the

context in which standardisation takes place (sometimes unin-

tentionally), thereby creating conditions that favour certain solutions

(see Egyedi, 2000; Townes, 2012 for examples).

The literature comes to diﬀerent conclusions regarding the extent to

which such interventions facilitate the standardisation process. For

example, Pelkmans’s (2001) analysis of GSM’s development places a

large emphasis on the European Commission’s role in making the case

successful whereas Bekkers (2001) sees other factors as more im-

portant. Meyer (2012) ﬁnds that all ways of ‘entrepreneurial’govern-

ment intervention in SDOs contribute to successful standardisation

whereas American standardisation professionals are critical about

agenda-setting by government, and prefer the topics of SDOs’work

agendas to be determined by private actors (NIST, 2010). However,

Meyer (2012) also found that such ‘entrepreneurial’government in-

terventions in standardisation committees can only be successful if they

happen early enough in the process, implying that governments need

standardisation foresight (see Goluchowicz and Blind, 2011) if they aim

to use these means of intervention.

3.2.3. Combinations of government-based and market-based

standardisation

Where the government-based and market-based modes jointly

occur, elements of hierarchy and competition and their associated

characteristics (see Table 2) drive the standardisation process. Similar

to the interventions in the committee-based mode, the literature

documents government intervention in market-based standardisation

using hierarchical and non-hierarchical means. By using their hier-

archical position to mandate a speciﬁc solution’s use, governments can

Table 3C

Literature on the interaction between governments and markets.

Combination of Modes Paper Brief Summary Empirical Grounding Theory about Multiple

Modes

Geographical Context Industry Context

Government/Market Puﬀert (2002, 2000) Railway track gauges case Individual case No Mainly USA Transportation

Rosen et al. (1988) ADA programming language case Individual case No USA IT

Delmas and Montiel (2008) EMAS case Individual case No Europe Environmental management

W & tzold et al. (2001) EMAS case Individual case No Europe Environmental management

Hail et al. (2010) International accounting standards case Individual case No Global with focus on USA Financial services

Funk and Methe (2001) Global mobile telecom standard battle Individual case Yes Global Telecom

Cabral and Kretschmer

(2007)

Economic model of government intervention in

markets

5 case-examples to illustrate

model

Yes Mainly USA Telecom, aerospace, nuclear power, IT,

pest control

Cabral and Salant (2014) Economic model comparing competing standards

vs. one standard

n/a Yes n/a n/a

Gandal et al. (2003) Comparing economic results of competing

standards vs. one standard

Individual cases Yes Europe, USA Telecom

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

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cut market battles short or prevent them from occurring altogether

(Cabral and Kretschmer, 2007; Cabral and Salant, 2014; den Uijl, 2015;

Gandal et al., 2003; van de Kaa et al., 2011 –also see Tables 1and 3C

for examples). Whether governments should intervene in this manner is

a topic of contention in the literature. Some authors highlight the

beneﬁts related to compatibility, innovation and social welfare whereas

others claim that government intervention impacts negatively on in-

novation (see Section 3.1.3).

Hierarchical interventions can only be used to end a market battle at

the national (or –in the case of Europe –regional) level. At the global

level, there usually is no government with a hierarchical position to

make binding decisions for others. In global standard battles, govern-

ments using their hierarchical positions to mandate solutions for big

national markets nevertheless send an important signal to other actors

that this solution will have a substantial installed base, thus giving it an

edge in the battle (Funk and Methe, 2001). Additionally, governments

can also intervene in national-level market battles using non-hier-

archical means. One way of doing so is developing voluntary standards

which then compete against others, such as the EMAS environmental

management standard (Delmas and Montiel, 2008; Wätzold et al.,

2001). This may be accompanied by granting relief from certain reg-

ulatory requirements to parties that implement the standard to en-

courage its use (Wätzold et al., 2001). Another way of intervening in

market battles with non-hierarchical means is using public procurement

to build a solution’s installed base (Edler and Georghiou, 2007; Rosen

et al., 1988). This is likely to be particularly eﬀective in areas such as

defence or medical care, where governments purchase goods and ser-

vices in large quantities, and relies on elements of the market-based

mode, giving the government no additional inﬂuence beyond that of an

important player in the market.

3.3. Heterogeneity of standards and multi-mode standardisation

The examples and literature cited so far show that there are many

potential relationships, interactions and interdependences in standar-

disation processes. Furthermore, standards themselves are also very

diverse: They can apply to either the company, local, national or

transnational levels. In addition, they diﬀer in many other aspects, such

as (1) the industry sector(s) for which they are relevant; (2) their eco-

nomic functions (e.g. compatibility or safety, see Blind, 2004); (3)

whether they address products, services or processes (see Tassey,

2000); (4) whether their scopes cover small technical details or archi-

tectures for entire systems; and (5) the uncertainty and complexity of

the technology that they relate to (see Blind et al., 2017; de Vries,

1999). Standards are therefore extremely heterogeneous. The stakes

involved in their development and the characteristics of the involved

actors are likely to depend on the standard’s attributes. This implies a

vast variety in standardisation processes with very case-speciﬁc dy-

namics and interactions. How exactly these dynamics play out in a

process depends on the participating stakeholders, their interests and

their strategies to attain these interests.

Nevertheless, the modes of standardisation introduced above form

the foundation of these processes. Standardisation processes in all areas

have in common that actors would beneﬁt from a common solution but

have diﬀerent preferences. We are not aware of literature that proposes

other mechanisms to achieve the required coordination than coopera-

tion, competition and hierarchy. This means that, regardless of a

standardisation process’s speciﬁcs, it will be based on one or multiple

modes. Since the trends identiﬁed in Section 2.1, which lead to in-

creasing complexity in standardisation, aﬀect many diﬀerent settings,

we expect multi-mode standardisation to become increasingly common

across the heterogeneous domain of standardisation.

Tables 3A,3B and 3C show that there is a lack of work that studies

the combination of all three standardisation modes

and a relative

scarcity of work providing theoretical insights about multi-mode stan-

dardisation (15 out of 33 studies). These tables also show two strong

biases in this literature towards the IT and telecommunications sectors

on the one hand and Europe and the US on the other hand. Literature on

multi-mode standardisation therefore still has substantial gaps, because

it only covers a small range of standardisation ‘cultures’. These two

biases deserve closer attention.

Blind et al. (2017) ﬁnd technological uncertainty to be a key ele-

ment in determining the eﬀectiveness of committee- and government-

based standardisation. While this ﬁnding applies to single-mode stan-

dardisation, it highlights the technological context’s importance for

standardisation in general. A generalisable theory about multi-mode

standardisation therefore requires considering diﬀerent technological

contexts and sectors. The predominance of IT and telecommunications

in the literature raises the question whether multi-mode standardisation

occurs in other sectors and technological contexts to the same degree.

Markets play an important role in IT-related ﬁelds (see Section 2), but

this does not explain why these ﬁelds also dominate the literature on

the combination between governments and committees. We observe

that the cases of government-committee interaction documented in the

literature occurred in key national industries that are heavily regulated

or have a history of state ownership (e.g. the telecommunications sector

–see Schmidt and Werle, 1998). Even if government intervention in

standardisation were to only occur in such sectors, this leaves a gap in

terms of sectors covered. We would then expect multi-mode standar-

disation with government involvement to also occur, e.g., in the

healthcare, food and ﬁnancial services sectors. This expectation is in

line with existing evidence. NIST (2010) mentions examples of gov-

ernment intervention in healthcare and nuclear standardisation. In the

European Union, government involvement in standardisation exists in

all major areas as documented by the “New Approach”standardisation

requests in CEN/CENELEC’s 2017 work programme (CEN/CENELEC,

2017).

Given the importance of the institutional context in government

activities but also in shaping markets and committees (Tate, 2001), we

also see that the literature is biased in its geographic coverage. Our

discussion in Section 2.1 shows that multi-mode standardisation exists

in various political settings, such as in Europe, the USA and more re-

cently China, but also that substantial diﬀerences appear to exist in how

such multi-mode standardisation manifests itself in these contexts. Si-

milar diﬀerences can be expected in other countries, e.g. Japan, the

Republic of Korea or various developing countries.

We expect that the underlying characteristics of multi-mode stan-

dardisation apply regardless of the exact type of standard. Nevertheless,

how they translate into the speciﬁc dynamics of a standardisation

process is likely to depend on many factors. The biases in the literature

on which we base our insights therefore present a limitation of our

further discussion in that regard and present an important opportunity

for future research.

4. Achieving coordination in multi-mode standardisation

As outlined in the Section 2, achieving coordination between actors

who would beneﬁt from using a common solution to a problem, but

may have diﬀerent preferences for this solution, is a key aim of stan-

dardisation. While the literature is very clear about how this goal can be

reached in single-mode standardisation, our discussion in Section 3.3

shows that substantial gaps still exist which limit our understanding of

This is despite our observation in Table 1 that inﬂuential standards in various areas

emerged from such processes.

Although IT is not heavily regulated in general, all IT-related cases with government

involvement in our literature overview have a link to the defence sector.

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1377

coordination in multi-mode standardisation. Filling these gaps requires

further research (see Section 5.1), but we can gain initial insights by

recombining existing ﬁndings and theorising based on cases that so far

have only been considered individually. We do so by relying on an

inductive logic and base our insights on the evidence that has already

been published, without a pre-conceived theoretical lens.

In Section 4.1, we consider how standardisation ‘cultures’emerge

and are maintained. Section 4.2 examines how individual actors can

activate speciﬁc new modes of standardisation, given this background.

Section 4.3 focuses on timing in multi-mode standardisation, and Sec-

tion 4.4 looks at the interactions between modes that drive the out-

comes of a standardisation process. Combined, these observations

imply that multi-mode standardisation is an ongoing process without a

clear end point −an idea that we explore in Section 4.5.

4.1. Emergence and maintenance of standardisation ‘Cultures’

As outlined earlier, approaches towards standardisation diﬀer con-

siderably between industry sectors and also between countries (Blind

and Gauch, 2008; Büthe and Mattli, 2011;Hawkins, 1999; Tate, 2001).

This means that in each sector and country common understandings

about the ‘rules of setting the rules’, i.e. about how standards usually

emerge and what is seen as a legitimate standard (see Botzem and

Dobusch, 2012;Tamm Hallström and Boström, 2010), are likely to

exist. An important element of such implicit rules is the roles that co-

operation, competition and hierarchy usually play during a standardi-

sation process.

How such implicit rules emerge may be explained by Fligstein and

McAdam’s (2012) strategic action ﬁeld theory. According to this theory,

actors establishing new ﬁelds attempt to shape the ﬁeld according to

their preferences in dynamic processes. These processes result in a

settlement which includes the ﬁeld’s rules of operation. We expect such

a process to also take place when standardisation activities ﬁrst emerge

in a country or in an industry sector, i.e. when a new standardisation

ﬁeld emerges.

As Fligstein and McAdam (2012) note, such processes are also in-

ﬂuenced by the new ﬁeld’s environment. In the standardisation context,

at least three factors are likely to be particularly important: (1) At the

national level, standardisation often relates to the ‘variety of capitalism’

in a particular country (Tate, 2001). Depending on how business is

usually conducted in countries, actors also make diﬀerent uses of

standardisation as a tool (Tate, 2001) and require diﬀerent types of

legitimacy to see a standard as an acceptable solution (see Botzem and

Dobusch, 2012; Tamm Hallström and Boström, 2010). This is likely to

inﬂuence their activities in setting up new standardisation ﬁelds. (2)

Related to this point, the legal framework and other existing rules (e.g.

industry codes of practice) also shape the way in which the modes of

standardisation are typically used. For example, the European Union’s

“New Approach”(see Borraz, 2007) sets a clear framework for the

relationship between committee- and government-based standardisa-

tion in certain areas. New standardisation eﬀorts in areas covered by

such legal frameworks are therefore likely to reﬂect the provisions

therein. (3) Following Blind et al.’s (2017) ﬁndings about the inﬂuence

of technological uncertainty on whether government- or committee-

based standardisation deliver better results, this is also likely to aﬀect

the emergence of a standardisation ‘culture’. They argue that high

technological uncertainty is also linked to market uncertainty, implying

that the market-based mode may gain a more prominent role in stan-

dardising technologically uncertain ﬁelds. On the other hand, low

technological and market uncertainty may facilitate standardisation in

committees and the government-based mode.

Once established, these rules are likely to be enforced by powerful

actors in the ﬁeld and/or governments (see Fligstein and McAdam,

2012) but also to some extent by path-dependence –i.e. actors might

stick to approaches to standardisation that have worked in the past,

even though better alternatives may be available. Deviating from these

rules by activating modes of standardisation that are not yet involved in

aﬁeld is hence relatively diﬃcult. Nevertheless, doing so can be a good

strategic move, as it can oﬀer actors additional avenues to inﬂuence

standardisation. Furthermore, external shocks, such as technological

change and resulting mergers of ﬁelds (e.g. because of ICT being in-

tegrated into many areas), may put a ﬁeld in crisis (see Fligstein and

McAdam, 2012). Under such circumstances, a new settlement about

these ‘rules of setting the rules’may be required. This leads to a dy-

namic process, similar to the one that occurs when the ﬁeld is initially

established, to determine new commonly accepted standardisation

practices.

4.2. Activating modes of standardisation

We examine how (easily) modes that are normally not involved in a

ﬁeld can be activated. Doing so may provide actors with new strategic

options but is subject to certain constraints. Below, we discuss the ac-

tivation of elements of committee-, market-based (Section 4.2.1), and

government-based standardisation (Section 4.2.2). We summarise the

key elements of this discussion in Table 4.

4.2.1. Activating market-based and committee-based standardisation

Market-based and committee-based standardisation are pre-

dominantly driven and activated by private actors (see Table 2). Farrell

and Saloner (1988) assume that each private actor has a choice of

joining committees or adopting a solution in the market to signal their

commitment. This implies that elements of market-based or committee-

based standardisation are activated by the ﬁrst actor who makes a

unilateral decision to seek competition and/or cooperation with others.

Indeed, some of the cases cited earlier support this expectation. In the

US 2G mobile communication case, Qualcomm initiated a market battle

by introducing its solution in the market to compete with the result of

Table 4

Activating modes of standardisation.

Committee-Based Standardisation Market-Based Standardisation Government-Based Standardisation

Activator Any actor who initiates a

standardisation committee.

Any actor who releases a solution

intended as standard into the market.

Only governmental actors can activate elements of

government-based mode. Private actors can lobby them.

Motivations for activation Increasing the activator’sinﬂuence on the standardisation process. Following a policy-related rationale for intervening.

Conditions for successful

activation and contribution

to process

Willingness to cooperate and

suﬃcient expertise to contribute in

committees.

Producers need suﬃcient resources to

release solutions into the market.

Governments can become active out of their own volition or

if convinced by private actors. Several factors help private

actors to convince governments:

Convincing others to also participate. Standard users must be willing to adopt

solutions given risk of incurring

switching costs.

•Ability to provide relevant information

•Membership of larger groups

•Salience of cause to government

•Signalling credible threats

•Having ties to government

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

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committee-based standardisation (Funk and Methe, 2001; Pelkmans,

2001). In the LAN case, several parties engaged in market-based stan-

dardisation before any result had been obtained in committees (von

Burg, 2001). In the Java case, Sun activated the committee-based mode

by proposing Java as a solution in ISO standardisation (Garud et al.,

2002).

These observations make it seem relatively easy for any private

actor to invoke elements of market- and/or committee-based standar-

disation. However, this might be more diﬃcult in reality. When actors

try to activate elements of a mode that are usually not involved in

standardisation in their institutional context, they might encounter

strong resistance. For example, when they involve committees in set-

tings where standards are usually determined in markets, they need to

mobilise other actors to cooperate. Activating competition in a stan-

dardisation process where standards are usually set through coopera-

tion may undermine the (input) legitimacy which Botzem and Dobusch

(2012) and Tamm Hallström and Boström (2010) see as important for

standardisation to successfully reach coordination.

Such invocations of a new mode are akin to ‘innovative action’in

Fligstein and McAdam’s (2012) strategic action ﬁeld theory which may

cause an ‘episode of contention’in a settled ﬁeld. Whether such action

achieves its desired outcome depends on many factors, such as its

supporters’strength and positions in the ﬁeld or the opponents’re-

sponses (Fligstein and McAdam, 2012). In these contexts, individual

actors can only shape the rules if they are suﬃciently strong and na-

vigate the ﬁeld well (Fligstein and McAdam, 2012). Applying Fligstein

and McAdam’s (2012) theory to standardisation therefore suggests that

actors can only successfully introduce elements of market-based and/or

committee-based standardisation if they are in a strong enough position

to do so. Unfortunately, extant literature that we are aware of does not

provide suﬃcient evidence about the exact circumstances when this is

likely to be successful. Consequently, this is a topic for future research.

4.2.2. Activating government-based standardisation

Contrary to committee- and market-based standardisation, govern-

ment-based standardisation is driven by public actors (see Table 2).

Only governmental actors can thus invoke elements of government-

based standardisation themselves. Private actors who want elements of

the government-based mode to be involved must therefore ﬁrst con-

vince the government to intervene. Regardless of whether governments

become active out of their own volition or because private actors

convince them, the cases documented in literature (see Tables 3B and

3C) suggest that governments will only do so if they see wider policy

implications beyond the standard itself. Examples of such policy goals

in past cases include building the European Single market (Bekkers,

2001; Borraz, 2007; Pelkmans, 2001), supporting defence activities

(Rosen et al., 1988), ensuring ﬁnancial markets’stability (Büthe and

Mattli, 2011; Hail et al., 2010; Tamm Hallström, 2004), promoting

energy eﬃciency (de Vries and Verhagen, 2016), and promoting na-

tional industries (Gao et al., 2014; Gao, 2014).

This implies that private actors must provide a clear policy-related

rationale to persuade governments to intervene. Both cases of successful

and failed attempts to involve government have been documented, for

example by David (1992),David and Bunn (1988),Gao et al. (2014),

and Gao (2014). Standardisation literature oﬀers no insights into the

reasons for these successes or failures, but the ﬁndings in other streams

of literature may apply in this context. Literature on lobbying and

regulatory capture argues that private actors who successfully convince

governments of a point of view are those who (1) can provide in-

formation that is needed by governmental actors (Bouwen, 2002; Dal

Bó, 2006); (2) belong to larger groups arguing for the same cause

(Klüver, 2011; Mahoney, 2007); and/or (3) have a cause which is

salient to the government (Klüver, 2011). In addition, also those who

signal credible threats, e.g. about legal action against government de-

cisions, may successfully convince governments to act in line with their

preferences (Dal Bó, 2006; Schmidt, 2002). Strategic action ﬁeld theory

oﬀers an alternative explanation. It argues that important players who

dominate a ﬁeld (referred to as ‘incumbents’) often have close ties to

the government and are able to enlist its support if their dominance is

threatened (Fligstein and McAdam, 2012). A recent example of this is

the European Commission’s response to car makers’pressure to weaken

emission standards following the Volkswagen Diesel scandal (Neslen,

2015). This would also explain how governments choose which speciﬁc

solutions to support when they intervene out of their own volition. For

example, in the GSM case, national governments supported speciﬁc

solutions that were designed by incumbents in their national tele-

communications industries (Bekkers, 2001; Pelkmans, 2001). Another

example is the competition between accounting standards where sup-

port for US GAAP from important American actors inﬂuenced the US

government’s decision not to endorse IFRS standards (Hail et al., 2010).

Of course, the diﬃculty of invoking government into a standardisation

process is also likely to vary based on national standardisation ‘cultures’

which determine what role governments typically play and how legit-

imate their activities are perceived.

4.3. Timing in multi-mode standardisation

In addition to the combination of standardisation modes that con-

stitute a standardisation process, the timing in which they occur is

another key feature. While government-based standardisation can

occur at any time, successful committee- and market-based standardi-

sation are linked to distinct phases in the standardisation process (see

Table 2). This suggests that elements of these modes can only be used at

certain times and that there is a clear sequence to be followed. Such a

clear sequence can be observed in some multi-mode cases (e.g. Wi-Fi vs.

Home RF –see van den Ende et al., 2012), but this is not always the

case.

Botzem and Dobusch (2012) see standardisation as a recursive

process where each cycle of development and diﬀusion is followed by

another, and events in the previous cycle inﬂuence what happens in the

next cycle. This idea is supported by the Java standardisation case

where a de-facto standard ﬁrst emerged in the market before commit-

tees were involved (Garud et al., 2002). In addition, elements of the

modes may also occur in parallel. The dynamic interactions between

elements of these modes discussed in Section 3.2.1 (see Farrell and

Saloner, 1988; van Wegberg, 2004; Vercoulen and van Wegberg, 1998)

rely on the assumption that elements of market-based and committee-

based standardisation can occur simultaneously, which has been

documented in the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD case (see den Uijl and de Vries,

2013). The intensity with which the diﬀerent modes inﬂuence the

process may vary at diﬀerent stages. For example, in the development

of international accounting standards, the government-based mode’s

impact was very pronounced at several key points when governments

passed new rules which impacted on standard development in com-

mittees (see Büthe and Mattli, 2011). During other stages in the process,

government’s role was less pronounced (Büthe and Mattli, 2011).

This implies that there is a large variety in timing of multi-mode

standardisation processes and that elements of the diﬀerent modes can

impact a process in many diﬀerent sequences. Although varying this

sequence from the usual one in a speciﬁc institutional setting is likely to

lead to similar resistance as introducing entirely new modes (see

Section 4.2), this further expands the number of strategic options for

actors in the process. We discuss the consequences of varying the se-

quence of a standardisation process below.

4.4. Interactions between modes in multi-mode standardisation processes

As we already found in existing literature, the modes of standardi-

sation interact with each other dynamically. Within these interactions,

they can fulﬁldiﬀerent functions, such as creating diﬀerent types of

legitimacy (see Botzem and Dobusch, 2012; Tamm Hallström and

Boström, 2010), facilitating agreement among actors with diﬀerent

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1379

interests, building an installed base for a solution, or providing a pro-

cess for ensuring regular updates of the standard.

In this section, we recombine observations from the literature to

generate tentative new insights into these interactions that go beyond

what has been theorised so far. To do so, we consider ways in which

elements of each mode can impact parallel and/or subsequent devel-

opments in other modes. We ﬁrst consider the interactions between the

committee- and market-based modes (Section 4.4.1). Section 4.4.2

discusses the potential impact of the government-based mode in multi-

mode standardisation. Section 4.4.3 examines three-way interactions

that are likely to occur in cases involving all three modes. Table 5

summarises the key points of this section.

4.4.1. Interactions between committees and markets

When there is no government involvement, standards emerge in one

or both of the other modes. We focus on situations involving both

committees and markets. In such cases, committees and markets are

strongly mutually dependent.

Actors in markets may look for guidance from committees regarding

the eventual solution to be chosen as a standard. Although standards

developed in committees are voluntary (e.g. de Vries, 1999; Mattli and

Büthe, 2003), markets often follow committees’choices of standards

because these decisions signal support by many important players, re-

sulting in a bandwagon eﬀect (e.g. Delcamp and Leiponen, 2014) and

legitimising solutions (Botzem and Dobusch, 2012; Garud et al., 2002;

Tamm Hallström and Boström, 2010). Absence of such clear signals

from committees can lead to very fragmented markets as Meyer (2012,

pp. 134–165) observed in the case of container sizes for European in-

termodal transportation. Failure to reach a decision on a standard in

committees may therefore also contribute to several solutions con-

tinuing to exist in parallel in the market. This is a factor contributing to

no de-facto standard emerging, adding to the ones identiﬁed by

Techatassanasoontorn and Suo (2011) and de Vries et al. (2011).

The voluntary nature of committee-based standards also means that

markets can be used to challenge a standard chosen in a committee if an

actor is dissatisﬁed with it. Once a committee has agreed on a standard,

its actual use and implementation is up to the choices of actors in the

market. Because coordination is only reached if actors use a common

solution, the diﬀusion in the market conﬁrms or overrules the decision

made in a committee. The cases of USB vs. FireWire (van den Ende

et al., 2012) and 2G mobile telecommunications (Funk and Methe,

2001; Gandal et al., 2003; Pelkmans, 2001) show that standards de-

veloped by SDOs can still become one solution competing with others in

a market battle. Support from an SDO may then be a key factor in such a

market battle but is neither necessary nor suﬃcient for emerging as the

common solution.

Since acceptance in the market is eventually decisive for a standard

to reach its goal of coordination, actors in committees can be heavily

inﬂuenced by parallel or earlier developments in the market. A solu-

tion’s installed base sends strong signals of commitment (Blind, 2011;

Egyedi and Koppenhol, 2010; Farrell and Saloner, 1988; Garud et al.,

2002). Committees may also be involved after a de-facto standard has

been chosen in the market to make it acceptable to users who require

high degrees of input legitimacy (e.g. Microsoft in the oﬃce document

Table 5

Interactions between modes.

Impact on In early stages of process In late stages of process

Committee-Based Standardisation Market-Based Standardisation

•Providing guidance to standard users before large-scale implementation

•Facilitating agreement between producers, thus avoiding market-battles

•Providing the basis for government procurement

•Providing post-hoc input legitimacy for standards chosen in

market

•Building support for challenging established standards

•Keeping standard speciﬁcations up-to-date and providing

platform for standard maintenance

Government-Based

Standardisation •Providing technical speciﬁcations to be referenced in legislation

•Providing actors with an avenue for regulatory capture

Market-Based Standardisation Committee-Based

Standardisation

•Signalling commitment to

committees

•Building installed bases for solutions•Challenging standards chosen in committees

Government-Based

Standardisation

•Signalling commitment to

governments

Government-Based Standardisation Committee-Based

Standardisation

In national standardisation:

•Resolving wars of attrition

•Creating conditions in favour of proposed solutions

•Raising actors’stakes in committees if committee-based standard could become mandatory

In international standardisation

•Jointly developing international governmental standards

Market-Based Standardisation In national standardisation:

•Resolving wars of attrition

•Creating conditions in favour of proposed solutions

In international standardisation:

•Building installed bases in national markets

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

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format case (Blind, 2011; Egyedi and Koppenhol, 2010) and Sun in the

Java case (Garud et al., 2002)). Furthermore, it is also conceivable that

an actor uses the committee-based mode to build broad support for a

new solution that challenges one which previously emerged as the de-

facto standard.

4.4.2. Interactions involving governments

Governments’hierarchical position enables them to decide stan-

dardisation processes and resolve wars of attrition if they have legis-

lative power over the entire geographic area for which the standard is

developed. This means that governments choosing and enforcing a so-

lution is decisive, even if this choice is not aligned with other actors’

preferences. This solution will then remain in place unless the gov-

ernment reverses its decision (possibly due to of lobbying).

Not only do governments impact on developments in markets or

committees, the reverse direction of inﬂuence has also been observed.

In several cases, such as GSM (Bekkers, 2001; Pelkmans, 2001), TD-

SCDMA (Gao et al., 2014; Gao, 2014), and the competition between

accounting standards (Hail et al., 2010), speciﬁc government inter-

ventions were reactions to events in the committee- and/or market-

based modes. In addition to such ad-hoc inﬂuences, the literature also

documents two institutionalised ways in which committees’decisions

have implications for the outcomes of governments’involvement: (1)

the European “New Approach”(Borraz, 2007) and (2) governments’

preference to refer to committee-based standards in their procurement

(Edler and Georghiou, 2007; Rosen et al., 1988). Such ﬁxed avenues of

inﬂuencing government policy through committee-based standardisa-

tion suggest that multi-mode standardisation opens up avenues for

regulatory capture (see e.g. Dal Bó, 2006; Laﬀont and Tirole, 1991).

This is because participating in committees gives more direct inﬂuence

on the outcome of a standardisation process than lobbying govern-

ments, especially in more mature markets (Blind et al., 2017). Blind

et al. (2017) ﬁnd that committee-based standardisation is more prone

to providing a basis for regulatory capture when technological un-

certainty is low. This suggests that this eﬀect also relates to timing.

Standardisation processes often coincide with a technology’s develop-

ment and thus also with decreasing technological uncertainty. Using

committee-based standardisation as a tool to inﬂuence government

policy may therefore be most eﬀective in a standardisation process’s

later stages.

The observations made so far in this section apply to the national

level of standardisation. At the transnational level, actors with hier-

archical positions similar to those of governments rarely exist (the

European Commission being a notable exception). In cases where

governments want to contribute to transnational standardisation, they

can make use of the cooperative or competitive coordination mechan-

isms. Governments can jointly develop standards in international or-

ganisations, such as the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the

United Nations, which develops the Codex Alimentarius food safety

standards), and may then commit themselves to using their hierarchical

position to enforce the resulting standard at the national level (Büthe

and Mattli, 2011, 2010). Alternatively, their interventions in national

markets (through hierarchy or purchasing power –see Edler and

Georghiou, 2007; Funk and Methe, 2001; Rosen et al., 1988) either

directly build a solution’s installed base, or signal that a large installed

base of a solution can be expected to develop in a country. Funk and

Methe (2001) ﬁnd that this may signiﬁcantly impact transnational

standardisation because other governments or actors in committees or

in other countries’markets may choose a solution which has such an

(expected) installed base.

4.4.3. Interactions between all three modes of standardisation

In addition to these direct interactions between pairs of standardi-

sation modes, activities within one mode of standardisation may also

have a ‘moderating’eﬀect on the dynamics between the other two

modes. For example, actions by the government can have a direct eﬀect

on committee- and/or market-based standardisation but may also

change the interactions between these two modes. This would further

add to the potential dynamics that occur in multi-mode standardisation.

Extant literature provides two examples of such ‘moderating eﬀects’.

(1) Meyer (2012) argues that the European Commission’s early inter-

vention into the 2G and 3G mobile telecommunication standardisation

prevented interactions between committee- and market-based stan-

dardisation that were observed in the parallel US standardisation pro-

cess. However, other types of government intervention can also raise

actors’stakes in standardisation and make standardisation processes

more contested (Meyer, 2012). This could potentially lead actors to

engage in committees and markets simultaneously to improve the

chances of their solution emerging as the standard. (2) Governments

often rely on standards which emerge from committees in their pro-

curement (e.g. Edler and Georghiou, 2007; Rosen et al., 1988). In cases

where governments intervene in market battles through procurement,

doing so means that the results of committee-based standardisation also

inﬂuence the interactions between markets and governments.

In addition to a mode inﬂuencing the relationship between the re-

maining two modes, the dynamics of this relationship may also impact

what happens within that mode (i.e. the causality may exist in both

directions). Like the interactions between pairs of modes, these re-

lationships are likely to be reciprocal and potentially highly dynamic.

For example, actors who anticipate that governments will intervene in

market battles may engage in relevant committees to ensure that the

resulting standards reﬂect their preferences (see Blind and Mangelsdorf,

2016). Another example would be government intervening in a stan-

dardisation process in response to interactions between the committee-

and market-based modes which lead to an unsatisfactory result of the

standardisation process, as observed in the case of e-mobility charging

plugs in Europe (see Bakker et al., 2015).

Although these examples on their own cannot be generalised, they

point towards an additional potentially important feature of multi-

mode standardisation that has so far not been documented in the lit-

erature. It is likely that the dynamics in multi-mode standardisation

also include indirect eﬀects, where the activities in one mode aﬀect the

dynamics that unfold between the other two modes and vice versa.

4.5. Multi-mode standardisation as an ongoing process

The ways in which the modes can impact on each other discussed so

far provide actors with a large number of strategic options. Which

options they apply and what impact they have on a standardisation

process depends on their individual strategies. This raises the question,

how to reach a balance among these interactions and which elements

will eventually be decisive for the results.

We can already identify two factors that inﬂuence the relative

importance of the modes in a process: (1) The standardisation ‘culture’

in a country and/or sector is likely to impact on each mode’sim-

portance (see Section 4.1). (2) Actors’available resources and

knowledge. Eﬀectively participating in market-based standardisation

as a producer requires substantial investments, e.g. in production

capacities or marketing (e.g. den Uijl, 2015; van de Kaa et al., 2011;

see also von Burg, 2001, pp. 78–99). It also requires standard im-

plementers and users who are willing to invest in building up installed

bases and to bear the switching costs in case they made the ‘wrong bet’

(e.g. Belleﬂamme, 2002). Participating in committee-based standar-

disation also requires investments, e.g. costs for experts who can re-

present an actor, but they are usually much lower compared to those

needed for participating in market-based standardisation. The re-

sources and knowledge needed for eﬀectively inﬂuencing the gov-

ernment-based mode are likely to lie in between the other two.

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1381

Lobbying government does not require large investments in produc-

tion facilities but the logic of inﬂuence on the result is less straight-

forward than in committees and the outcomes are more uncertain.

Government- and especially market-based standardisation are there-

fore likely to become relatively more important in a multi-mode

standardisation process if actors are willing and able to spend the

necessary resources and use them eﬀectively.

Neither of these two factors is likely to be static. In the medium- to

long-term, the standardisation ‘culture’in a ﬁeld can change if it is

challenged by suﬃciently strong actors, or if it needs to adapt to outside

shocks. In the short-term, available resources and knowledge can also

ﬂuctuate, e.g. because actors acquire them or because actors join or

leave the standardisation process. This suggests that the relative

weights of the modes can change throughout the process, as was ob-

served in the development of international accounting standards (see

Büthe and Mattli, 2011).

Such changes and the options to challenge coordination outcomes

identiﬁed above also imply that multi-mode standardisation is poten-

tially indeﬁnitely ongoing, rather than a deﬁnite process as assumed in

the ideal-typical views. Where extant literature already considers

standardisation as an ongoing process, it mainly focuses on eﬀorts in

committees to extend or maintain standards (Botzem and Dobusch,

2012; Egyedi and Blind, 2008; Jain, 2012) or on work in committees to

replace existing standards when technological change makes them ob-

solete (Egyedi and Blind, 2008).

Instead of being the end point to a process, an established standard

is a situation with a short-term equilibrium between the involved ac-

tors, i.e. where, for the time being, no actor attempts to challenge the

status quo. An established standard therefore resembles a settled stra-

tegic action ﬁeld (see Fligstein and McAdam, 2012). Such a settlement

can be challenged at any time. The interactions between standardisa-

tion modes discussed above and the potentially shifting weights of the

modes in a standardisation process mean that actors can launch new

activities in one or multiple modes that then may aﬀect on other modes

and the overall standardisation process.

To sum up, standardisation is therefore not only an ongoing process

because standards need to be updated regularly, as already acknowledged in

extant literature, but also because actors may disagree with an established

standard and challenge it. The objective of coordination is thus only reached

if no actor challenges the standard successfully. The success of such activ-

ities is likely to depend on a range of factors, such as the standardisation

‘culture’in the ﬁeld, the environment in which the standardisation process

takes place, the challenging actor’s resources and knowledge, and other

actors’willingness to defend the standard.

5. Conclusions and agenda for further research

Standardisation is vital for driving forward the major current trends

related to smart systems and platforms. Due to these systems’com-

plexity and variety of involved stakeholders, we expect multi-mode

standardisation to become increasingly prevalent. This means that a

better understanding of the phenomenon is needed. Although such

multi-mode standardisation processes can be expected to have case-

speciﬁc dynamics, these dynamics are likely to result from combina-

tions of certain underlying features related to the ideal-typical modes of

standardisation. Our work provides the basis for further research into

these features by adding three major contributions to the literature. (1)

We crystallise the three modes underlying standardisation processes

and their deﬁning characteristics (coordination mechanisms, timing of

coordination, main actors driving the process, avenues of inﬂuence,

inclusiveness in standard development). (2) We provide an overview of

the available literature on the interactions between these modes and

identify its gaps. (3) We recombine the evidence from this literature to

generate tentative insights, beyond what has been documented in lit-

erature so far, into the interactions and dynamics that are likely to

occur in multi-mode standardisation.

These interactions and dynamics are summarised in Fig. 2.

In ad-

dition to the direct interactions between modes that are already evident

from existing literature, we also expect developments in each mode to

have a reciprocal impact on the dynamics between the other two

modes. Because each mode of standardisation oﬀers an ‘avenue’for

actors to contribute to a standardisation process, these actors’actions

drive the dynamics in multi-mode standardisation. Actors can activate

new modes at various points in the process (although this is subject to

limitations related to the ﬁeld’s standardisation ‘culture’and relies on

their ability to wield suﬃcient inﬂuence over the ﬁeld). Once a mode

has been activated, every actor can decide whether to engage in this

mode and how to use the opportunities for manoeuvring that it oﬀers.

These complex dynamics occur against the backdrop of the ﬁeld’s

standardisation ‘culture’and institutional context. This backdrop has an

important impact on the degree to which actors can rely on certain

modes of standardisation, whether their activities within the modes are

perceived as legitimate and how the developments within the modes

aﬀect each other. A further element of this backdrop is the technolo-

gical context (which relates both to the technology’s complexity and the

degree of uncertainty of its development) in which the standard is de-

veloped. Compared to the standardisation ‘culture’and the institutional

context, extant literature oﬀers a weaker base for theorising about the

technological context’s impact on multi-mode standardisation pro-

cesses, making this a ﬁrst area for further research.

These ﬁndings establish the elements that are likely to be key for

multi-mode standardisation processes, and provide a good basis for

further research into this important phenomenon. All the elements in-

cluded in Fig. 2 require further enquiry, as outlined in the agenda for

research in Section 5.1. Furthermore, our ﬁndings already lead to some

recommendations for practitioners, see Section 5.2.

5.1. Implications for theory and agenda for further research

Multi-mode standardisation is likely to shape the dynamics of

standardisation and major technological and social developments in the

future. Theory about standardisation needs to reﬂect this better. We

propose that additional research should approach multi-mode stan-

dardisation from three perspectives: (1) dynamics of multi-mode stan-

dardisation processes and how they contribute to coordination; (2)

strategies for individual actors; and (3) the role of governments and

other facilitating actors like SDOs. Generating an understanding based

on these three perspectives will also provide a foundation for evaluating

the impact of multi-mode standardisation on business and society,

which represents a fourth area of research.

The ﬁrst suggested area for research could look in more detail into

the processes leading to the emergence of new standards. As outlined in

Section 4.3, multi-mode standardisation processes are highly dynamic

but current literature does not provide suﬃcient evidence about the

interactions in these processes. Using a theoretical angle from so-

ciology, such as Fligstein and McAdam’s (2012) strategic action ﬁelds,

may help to get a better grasp of these processes. Topics that need to be

considered in this context include the speciﬁc roles that actors can play

(e.g. in terms of designing and selecting solutions), the exact mechan-

isms behind the interactions between modes of standardisation, and the

conditions under which multi-mode standardisation leads to one or

multiple competing standards.

The second area for research could investigate how multi-mode

standardisation aﬀects individual actors and their strategies and how

they drive collective action. This research should aim to understand how

individual actors navigate around these processes to reach their goals.

Engaging in multiple modes gives actors a large number of potential

ways to inﬂuence the standardisation outcome but may also involve

Blue lines signify elements that have already been acknowledged in previous litera-

ture. Orange lines represent new elements that arise from our discussion.

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1382

substantial costs and hurdles. Nevertheless, it remains unclear under

which conditions the beneﬁts of using these possibilities outweigh the

costs. Such research could focus on success factors in multi-mode stan-

dardisation (building on the literature that investigates them in a single-

mode context). Other potentially useful theoretical angles for this topic

include again strategic action ﬁelds (see Fligstein and McAdam, 2012),

focusing on the activities of individual actors within a ﬁeld instead of the

entire ﬁeld’s development; or the resource-based, knowledge-based and

relational views (Dyer and Singh, 1998; Grant, 1996; Lavie, 2006;

Wernerfelt, 1984). It would be particularly interesting to explore which

resources, knowledge, and relationships organisations require to parti-

cipate successfully in multi-mode standardisation.

A third promising avenue of research could focus on the role of

governments and other facilitating actors. As Ho and O’Sullivan (2017)

note, the increasing complexity in standardisation requires actors who

can support standardisation processes. Diverse roles of governments

have been documented (see Sections 3.2 and 4) but a systematic

overview is lacking. As a ﬁrst step, a more complete review of national

strategies towards standardisation is needed. Such research could build

on Tate’s (2001) work. The resulting typology could serve as input for

investigations into the eﬀects of government intervention in multi-

mode standardisation. Topics could include what government activities

best support standardisation processes, whether the outcomes con-

tribute to promoting national industries, and whether government in-

volvement in multi-mode standardisation can promote a country’s po-

sition in international competition. Such research could also consider

non-economic eﬀects, such as how interventions impact large societal

and technological innovations. In addition to looking at the roles of

government in this process, this research could also take into account

other actors, such as SDOs, industry associations or powerful individual

actors (in line with Lessig, 2000; Lessig, 1999 idea that ‘code is law’),

and their contributions to managing and steering multi-mode standar-

disation processes.

Another relevant area of study is the role of diﬀerent modes of

standardisation in regulatory relief. Existing literature identiﬁes

standardisation as a way for business to reduce the burden of regulation

(e.g. Schmidt, 2002; Wätzold et al., 2001) but does not consider the

option of multi-mode standardisation in this context. It would be in-

teresting to investigate how the three modes inﬂuence each other in

setting rules that might replace or complement regulation. In such si-

tuations, the various interactions between government-based standar-

disation and the other modes (see Fig. 2) may provide ample oppor-

tunities for private actors to increase the chances that government

policy reﬂects their special interests. Theories on regulatory capture

(see e.g. Dal Bó, 2006; Laﬀont and Tirole, 1991) could therefore pro-

vide a particularly relevant theoretical background for studies related

to these topics.

As mentioned above, developing theory on multi-mode standardi-

sation in this manner would provide a basis for better understanding

the eﬀect of standardisation on large social and technological changes.

Although the literature already acknowledges the need for standardi-

sation to make these large scale innovations happen, the ﬁndings from

the research we outline above might be integrated into theoretical ap-

proaches, such as Geels, 2004; Geels, 2002002) socio-technical transi-

tions. This could help to ﬁnd out how diﬀerent conﬁgurations of stan-

dardisation processes (e.g. in terms of the involved modes, the sequence

in which they get involved, or their contributions’relative importance

for the process) can support or hinder major change, e.g. by aﬀecting

legitimacy, speed or technological development. In line with Blind

et al.’s (2017) ﬁnding that the eﬀectiveness of individual modes de-

pends on the technological context, such research needs to study multi-

mode standardisation in various technological and institutional set-

tings. The eﬀectiveness with which speciﬁc conﬁgurations of modes can

support or hinder such change is very likely to depend on the context in

which a standardisation process takes place. An analysis of the welfare

implications is also needed. While many academic and non-academic

studies (e.g. Blind, 2004; Blind and Jungmittag, 2008; Swann, 2010)

have already assessed this for single mode standardisation, it remains

unknown whether the developments discussed in this paper make a

diﬀerence in this regard.

Fig. 2. Interactions in multi-mode standardisation.

P.M. Wiegmann et al. Research Policy 46 (2017) 1370–1386

1383

5.2. Implications for practice

In addition to the implications for theory building, our results are

also relevant for practice. Anyone who has a stake in the ongoing large

social and technological changes is likely to be aﬀected by the outcome

of standardisation processes which we expect to be or become multi-

modal in many cases. Industrial actors, trade associations, NGOs and

research organisations should therefore all be aware of how standards

emerge.

If they decide to participate in the process, they should

consider the large variety of options that multi-mode standardisation

oﬀers for their strategies. Activating more than one standardisation

mode (e.g. by lobbying governments to intervene) requires suﬃcient

knowledge and resources. On the other hand, the discussion in Section

4shows that actors who do so gain a large variety of options to inﬂu-

ence standardisation, some of which only arise at certain stages of the

process. To apply these options as part of a coherent strategy, actors

should be aware of the dynamics that are likely to result from this. Even

if stakeholders decide against activating certain modes, they need to be

prepared for their competitors’actions. They should consider carefully

whether to follow into new modes, and avoid being blindsided by in-

ﬂuences resulting from modes in which they are not active.

SDOs need to shape their procedures in such a way that they are

responsive to inﬂuences from other modes and attractive for stakeholders

who have the choice between engaging in committee-based standardi-

sation and other modes. They also need to be prepared for intensiﬁed

competition within the committee-based mode, e.g. because SDOs from

other ﬁelds (e.g. ICT) are becoming potentially suitable forums for

standard development, or because of the emergence of new actors like

open-source communities. Strategies to remain relevant in this context

could include managing standardisation projects in such a way that

standards are not only developed and approved but their implementation

is stimulated and supported as well. Moreover, SDOs could emphasise

their strengths, such as being able to facilitate cooperation and agree-

ment among diverse groups of stakeholders, and could focus their con-

tributions where these strengths are most important. For example, SDOs

could promote committee work to deﬁne overarching frameworks and

architectures for new large systems which support activities in the

market to establish standards for the individual elements within them.

Where solutions that meet SDOs’requirements for a standard have al-

ready emerged in the market, it may be sensible to absorb them into a

formal standard to avoid duplicating eﬀorts, as observed in Section 4.

Similar implications are likely to apply to other organisations which

pursue committee-based standardisation activities, such as communities

of practice or open source communities, and which also need to attract

contributors and ensure that their solutions are widely implemented.

Governmental policymakers can use our ﬁndings in using standar-

disation to support policy and/or when they consider intervening in

standardisation, especially where there are strong opposed interests and

considerable societal implications. Standards that are used to support

policy (e.g. under the “New Approach”) mostly come from formal SDOs

in the committee-based mode. The importance of market-based stan-

dardisation in some areas suggests that governments may also beneﬁt

from incorporating them into their policy, instead of fostering the de-

velopment of new committee-based standards in addition to pre-ex-

isting de-facto standards. Especially in contexts of complex systems,

where standards do not stand alone but need to be aligned, this may

prevent fragmentation. When governments intervene in ongoing stan-

dardisation projects, non-hierarchical intervention is preferable (see

Meyer, 2012), but this requires timely identiﬁcation of the problem.

Hierarchical intervention may therefore be needed as a last resort when

markets and committees are likely to lead to unsatisfactory results.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editor, Martin Kenney, and four anon-

ymous reviewers for their insightful comments and their patience

throughout the revision process. In our opinion, we were able to im-

prove the paper substantially, thanks to their ideas. We also thank

Ursula Lohr-Wiegmann for her support and our colleagues at the

Department of Technology and Operations Management at Rotterdam

School of Management, Erasmus University for their advice on how to

take this paper through the review process. Errors and omissions re-

main the responsibility of the authors. This research did not receive any

speciﬁc grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-

for-proﬁtsectors.

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