Industrial path development in the UK space sector: processes of legitimacy building in the establishment of Space 2.0

Abstract

This paper explores the processes behind legitimacy building and its role in new path creation and the path transformation or the ‘de-locking’ of an established industry. We use a mixed-methods approach and focus on the emergence of ‘New Space’ or Space 2.0 in the UK, a new-to-the-world industry, with radically different products and/or conventions. Legitimation of new product categories is essential to enable future adoption by regulators and consumers. Our findings suggest that this is not a linear process but involves interlayering, or complex feedback loops, between three distinct types of legitimacy building: regulatory, normative, and cognitive. Failure in some of these feedback loops, for example, problems with altering regulatory legitimacy, would prevent the formation of new industrial pathways with significant implications for the development of new-to-the-world and new-to-region industries.