This essay contemplates the possible futures of evolutionary economics in terms of two contrasting images. In the first, the primary research emphasis of the future will continue to be on the topics that have interested evolutionary economists in the past, such as technological change, business behavior, and the role of institutions.…Read More
In order to sustainably innovate and grow, firms must, at times, shrink. This research is premised on the concept that the success of a firm’s innovation strategy relies not just on its ability to “grow smart,” but equally on its ability to “shrink smart.”…Read More
The study explores renewal in a novel but understudied context—an era of ferment with competing technological options. It focuses on IBM’s transition from market leadership in a failed path (plasma) to leadership in the emerging dominant technology (LCD) in the 1980s. Interviews and internal documents offer two primary factors explaining renewal at IBM.…Read More
The emergence of radical technologies presents a significant challenge to incumbent firms. We study firms’ management of radical technological change by separating their actions into upstream research (“R” of R&D) and downstream development (“D” of R&D).…Read More
Personalization is becoming ubiquitous on the World Wide Web. Such systems use statistical techniques to infer a customer’s preferences and recommend content best suited to him (e.g., “Customers who liked this also liked…”). A debate has emerged as to whether personalization has drawbacks.…Read More
A central idea in the theory of technology cycles is that social and political mechanisms are most important during the selection of a dominant design, and that eras of incremental change are socially uninteresting periods in which innovation is driven by technological momentum and elaboration of the dominant design.…Read More
How important is the original conception of an idea—the “raw” idea— to an innovation’s success? In this article, the authors explore whether raw ideas judged as “better” fare better in the market and also determine the strength of that relationship.…Read More
Many modern information technology services are increasingly being produced in a host country to serve clients in an offshore location. As a result, the internationalization of service functions is beginning to resemble that of their more traditional manufacturing counterparts.…Read More
We empirically examine the innovation consequences of organizational knowledge brokering, the ability to effectively apply knowledge from one technical domain to innovate in another. We investigate how organizational innovation outcomes vary by founders’ initial mode of venture ideation.…Read More
This paper uses a complex systems perspective to develop a theory of how human interaction dynamics (HID)-strategic decision processes and organizational mechanisms-for knowledge production under uncertainty give rise to a new organizational form. Our theoretical framework is derived from an inductive study of the international expansion of 14 Indian biotechnology and software firms.…Read More
“Social learning” can occur when information is transferred from existing customers to potential customers. It is especially important in cases where the information that is conveyed pertains to experience attributes, i.e., attributes of products that cannot be fully verified prior to the first purchase.…Read More
Biotech startups increasingly turn to corporate venture capital (VC) arms for funding, rather than to traditional venture capitalists. The innovation implications for these startups remain unexplored. Here, we present evidence that the shift in funding patterns is associated with a greater output of scientific publications as well as patenting.…Read More
This article investigates the post-entry implications of pre-entry technological choices made during the uncertain period before a dominant design. Building on work on technological dynamics and organizational inertia, I argue that too early commitments to the winning technology may impede the ability to bring the best product to market, but delaying investment too long limits the ability to accumulate useful knowledge.…Read More
This study theorizes about the behavioral and knowledge creation implications of betting on the losing technology in a competing technology situation and focuses on three main outcomes. First, in a situation with competing technological options, firms that invest initially in the losing technology will be less successful subsequently in building new knowledge.…Read More
Extant literature on divestment has repeatedly found that firms are likely to divest their poorly performing operations. In this paper, I consider how product market relatedness and geographic market differences in growth, policy stability, and exchange rate volatility can moderate the negative relationship between performance and divestment.…Read More
There is a growing trend among consumers to serially consume small, incomplete “chunks” of multiple media types—television, radio, Internet, and print—within a short time period. We refer to this behavior as media multiplexing and note the key challenges for integrated marketing communications media planners.…Read More
‘Nanotechnology’ is often touted as a significant emerging technological field. However, determining what nanotechnology means, whose research counts as nanotechnology, and who gets to speak on behalf of nanotechnology is a highly political process involving constant negotiation with significant implications for funding, legislation, and citizen support.…Read More
Talking about “green technology” gets people excited. It’s thrilling to think that a new wave of inventions and discoveries will revolutionize the way we live, halt the degradation of our planet and conserve resources for future generations. And it’s more than just talk: Investors are committing real dollars.…Read More
We analyze the competitive capacity investment timing decisions of both established firms and start-ups entering new markets which are characterized by a high degree of demand uncertainty. Firms may invest in capacity early (when the market is highly uncertain) or late (when market uncertainty has been resolved), possibly at different costs.…Read More
Many firms have introduced Internet-based customer self-service applications such as online payments or brokerage services. Despite high initial sign-up rates, not all customers actually shift their dealings online. We investigate whether the multistage nature of the adoption process (an “adoption funnel”) for such technologies can explain this low take-up.…Read More
