Lock-in did not follow a single design diffusing and hardening.

Evidence

It was not the case that an initial design was introduced and then diffused and locked-in by virtue of either the hazard of change (inertia) or the cognitive process of taken-for-grantedness (institutionalization). — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 637

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Undercuts the standard path-dependence story that treats lock-in as the endpoint of one design’s diffusion — here variation persisted long before any selection took hold.
• XREF: Connects to earlier chapters on path dependence in this volume and to Liebowitz and Margolis’s type-3 categorization cited in the same section.