Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search
提出技术不确定性源于发明者使用不熟悉的组件和组合进行搜索，并用专利引用数据证明新组合确实导致更高变异性，而组件重用对变异性的影响呈非单调且最终为正。
While the course of technological change is widely accepted to be highly uncertain and unpredictable, little work has identified or studied the ultimate sources and causes of that uncertainty. This paper proposes that purely technological uncertainty derives from inventors' search processes with unfamiliar components and component combinations. Experimentation with new components and new combinations leads to less useful inventions on average, but it also implies an increase in the variability that can result in both failure and breakthrough. Negative binomial count and dispersion models with patent citation data demonstrate that new combinations are indeed more variable. In contrast to predictions, however, the reuse of components has a nonmonotonic and eventually positive effect on variability.