Patterns in innovative activity

Question 1

Long-term patterns of technological change

Answer 1

• cumulative (changes added up) and evolutionary (iPhone - big step)
• most innovation: new combination of existing technologies
• not a smooth process- takes place in jumps

Question 2

Innovation shifts socis-economic paradigms

Answer 2

• waves 50 years
• new pervasive technologies

Consequence of techno-economic paradigm
-> competitiveness increasingly based on innovtion & R&D - knowledge, creativity & learning

Question 3

S-curve

Answer 3

can help in determining when to switch to a new technology

1. Emergence
2. rapid improvement
3. declining improvement
4. maturity -> limit is reached

issues:
- curve depends on choice of input variable

Question 4

Product life cycle

Answer 4

• fluid phase
• transitional phase
• specific phase
• may be more than 1 dominant design
• at the end of curve pressure on cost reduction (economies of scale) leads to consolidation (number of companies goes down)

Question 5

Adopter categories (Rogers)

Answer 5

• innovators
• early adopters
• early majority
• late majority
• laggards

largest gap between early adopters and early majority = chasm

Question 6

Models of diffusion

Answer 6