The dynamic mechanism of tentative governance for emerging technologies: A case study of China's new energy vehicle subsidy

The market, technological and social uncertainties of emerging technologies pose challenges to their governance. Existing literature pays little attention to the dynamic changes of different types of uncertainties during the emergence of emerging technologies, nor does it examine how governance dynamically adjust to address different types of uncertainties. In other words, the dynamic mechanism of tentative governance for emerging technologies has not been specifically studied. The high-quality development of China's new energy vehicle technology and industry provides a vivid and typical case. Based on the perspective of China's new energy vehicle subsidy, this study reveals the dynamic mechanism of tentative governance for emerging technologies, including “demonstration mechanism”, “exit mechanism” and “correction mechanism”, which correspond to the three core problems of governance: “how to start”, “how to end” and “how to adjust”. The demonstration mechanism reduces market uncertainties by promoting the comprehensive adoption of emerging technology products from pilot projects; the exit mechanism reduces technological uncertainties by smoothly phasing out subsidy and transferring control to the market; the correction mechanism addresses social uncertainties shock by establishing rapid response and taking strong measures. From an evolution perspective, the demonstration mechanism plays a key role in the early stage of the emergence of emerging technologies by reducing technological uncertainties through the reduction of market uncertainties. The exit mechanism plays a key role in the later stage of the emergence of emerging technologies by reducing market uncertainties through the reduction of technological uncertainties. The correction mechanism plays a key role when the emergence of emerging technologies is impacted by social uncertainties. This paper proposes a new theoretical framework and contributes to the in-depth study of tentative governance theory and provides guidance for the governance practice of emerging technologies. • This paper reveals three dynamic mechanisms of tentative governance for emerging technologies (TGFET). • These three mechanisms reduce market uncertainties, technological uncertainties, and social uncertainties. • The three mechanisms sequentially address the three core issues of governance- how to start, how to end, and how to adjust. • This paper's primary contributionis introducing a new theoretical framework, namely the model of dynamic mechanism of TGFET.