Technological hype and disappointment: lessons from the hydrogen and fuel cell case

Abstract

Technological hypes are powerful manifestations of expectations and can trigger actors to break out of their waiting games. There is a risk, however, that all too high expectations eventually lead to disappointment. In this paper we study the role of hype in technological trajectories and we make use of the recent hydrogen and fuel cell hype as an example. The hydrogen hype has triggered an actual innovation race and a rhetorical expectations race. The eventual disappointment affected mostly those contexts in which high expectations were not translated into stable institutions and long-term commitments. Furthermore we investigate the notion of expectations management and the possible roles therein for the innovating actors, the enactors, and the actors that choose to support them, the selectors.