chapter 3 Flashcards
technology trajectory
the path a technology takes through its lifetime. this path may refer to its rate of performance improvement, its rate of diffusion, or other changes of interest. it is most often used to represent the technology’s rate of performance improvement or rate of adoption in the marketplace.
product innovations
reflected in the output, the goods, or services. they are more visible than process innovations, but both are extremely important to an organisation’s ability to compete.
process innovations
innovations in the way an organisation conducts its business, such as in the techniques of producing or marketing goods or services. they are oriented toward improving the effectiveness or efficiency of production.
radical innovation
an innovation that is very new and different from prior solutions. it is a combination of newness and differentness. the most radical innovation would be new to the world and exceptionally different from existing products and processes.
incremental innovation
an innovation that makes a relatively minor change from existing practices.
competence enhancing innovation
the technology that builds upon the existing knowledge and skills of the firm.
competence destroying innovation
the technology that does not build on the firm’s existing competencies or renders them obsolete. whether an innovation is competence enhancing or destroying depends on the perspective being taken.
hierarchically nested systems
at any unit of analysis, the entity is a system of components, and each of those components is, in turn, a system of finer components, until some point is reached at which the components are elementary particles. most products and processes are hierarchically nested systems.
component (or modular) innovation
an innovation to one or more components that do not significantly affect the overall configuration of the system.
architectural innovation
an innovation that changes the overall design of a system or the way its components interact with each other. these innovations often have far-reaching and complex influences on industry competitors and technology users.
S-curves
measure the rate of performance and the rate of diffusion of new innovations in a market.
S-curves in technological improvement
many technologies exhibit an s-curve in their performance improvement over their lifetimes. when a technology’s performance is plotted against the amount of effort and money invested, it typically shows slow initial improvement, then accelerated improvement, followed by diminishing improvement.
discontinuous technology
a technology that fulfills a similar market need by building on an entirely new knowledge base. it may have a lower initial performance than the incumbent technology. if it has a steeper s-curve, there many come a time when the returns to the effort invested are much higher than the effort invested in the incumbent.
technology diffusion
the spread of technology through a population. it yields an s-curve because adoption is initially slow when an unfamiliar technology is introduced to the market. the s-curve of diffusion is in part a function of the s-curve in technology improvement. as technologies are better developed, they become more certain and useful to users, facilitating their adoption. furthermore, as learning-curve and scale advantages accrue to the technology, the price of finished goods often drops, further accelerating adoption by users.
Schumpeter
thought of creative destruction as his technology cycle model. he said the emergence of a new technological discontinuity can overturn the existing competitive structure of an industry, creating new leaders and losers.
