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This exploratory investigation offers evidence from biotechnology and nanotechnology sectors regarding the differential impacts of information flow rates, dispersion of networks and combination of progenitor sciences and technologies on technology diffusion rates. In recent years, enhanced rates of information flow have increased the ability for a greater overall number and diversity of foreign players to enter emerging technology development trajectories. At the same time, these trends are creating more dispersed networks with concomitant problems associated with information flow in such diffuse situations. Rates of diffusion of emerging technologies are also importantly affected by the number of scientific fields and generic technologies combined to create the new technology and the level of resultant complexity; higher levels of complexity can slow down diffusion rates. Further, at the country level, absorptive capacity is largely determined through institutions and their policies; however, in terms of enabling diffusion of technology to move effectively downstream from science to market, this requires social capabilities. © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.