Positive Tipping Point Dynamics and the Role of Entrepreneurial Activity

Monday, July 20, 2026, 10:15 AM

Session: SOC Student Plenary (Hybrid)

Positive tipping points literature is largely theoretical and lacks formal quantitative models of specific case studies. This limits the production of high-stakes policy insights which rely on broad policy and uncertainty analyses. Furthermore, the role of entrepreneurship is underexplored, despite the central role in stimulating increasing returns to adoption and network effects. We developed a socio-techno-economic model which incorporates adoption dynamics, social contagion, entrepreneurial dynamics and balancing feedback mechanisms which may lead to lock-in path dependence, inhibiting a positive tipping point, using solar PV in Germany as a case study. Entrepreneurial dynamics are central to the emergence of a positive tipping point; in the presence of an incumbent fossil-based regime, strong reinforcing feedbacks are necessary to stimulate, which appears to be unlikely without entrepreneurship and innovation. Entrepreneurs rely on policies to de-risk market entrance in the absence of a mature market, but once a market matures, policies could be lessened or removed. The work contributes to tipping points literature by formalizing the dynamics of entrepreneurship for low-carbon innovation, simulating and quantitatively analyzing the emergence of tipping. Avenues for further research include broader policy and uncertainty analyses, replication with other cases and refinement of PTP measuring methods.