Technological newness: An empirical study in the process industries

Abstract Technological change in product development is a crucial issue in the management of technology. The entire sweep of technological changes over the past hundred of years is, in essence, the sum of thousands of individual product development projects in thousands of firms. Yet the degree of technological change in individual development projects has not been extensively studied. This paper presents a four-dimensional characterization of technological newness for product development projects in the process industries in which product development is closely tied to process innovation. The characterization uses four dimensions of change that are required in the development of new products: chemistry, production equipment, fabrication technology and process control. Based on the framework of technological newness, the paper presents data collected on the degree of process change in a set of 20 product development projects conducted by a large manufacturer of advanced polymers. The data provide a clear demonstration of the value of the measurement framework, showing a strong relationship between the characterization of change and the project performance.

[1]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  The Interaction of Design Hierarchies and market Concepts in Technological Evolution : Research Policy , 1985 .

[2]  M. Lieberman.  The Learning Curve and Pricing in the Chemical Processing Industries , 1984 .

[3]  J. Burke,et al.  Petroleum Progress and Profits: A History of Process Innovation by John Lawrence Enos (review) , 1962 .

[4]  M. Lieberman.  The learning curve, technology barriers to entry, and competitive survival in the chemical processing industries , 1989 .

[5]  Frederick P. Brooks,et al.  The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Softw , 1978 .

[6]  J. Ettlie,et al.  Organization Strategy and Structural Differences for Radical Versus Incremental Innovation , 1984 .

[7]  James M. Utterback,et al.  Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation: How Companies Can Seize Opportunities in the Face of Technological Change , 1994 .

[8]  T. Jick.  Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Triangulation in Action. , 1979 .

[9]  C. Freeman.  Economics of Industrial Innovation , 1975 .

[10]  Brian Ing.  Management of Research and Innovation , 1981 .

[11]  Joseph D. Blackburn,et al.  Time-based competition : the next battleground in American manufacturing , 1991 .

[12]  K. Clark,et al.  Lead time in automobile product development explaining the Japanese advantage , 1989 .

[13]  J. Schumpeter,et al.  The Theory of Economic Development , 2017 .

[14]  Richard L. Daft,et al.  Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design , 1986 .

[15]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Product Development in the World Auto Industry , 1987 .

[16]  K. Clark,et al.  Innovation: Mapping the winds of creative destruction☆ , 1993 .

[17]  M. Porter.  TECHNOLOGY AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE , 1985 .

[18]  G. Dosi,et al.  Technical Change and Economic Theory , 1989 .

[19]  R. V. Wyk.  Innovation: The attacker's advantage : Richard N. Foster 316 pages, £14.95 (London, Macmillan, 1986) , 1987 .

[20]  J. C. Fisher,et al.  A simple substitution model of technological change , 1971 .

[21]  K. Eisenhardt,et al.  Speeding Products to Market: Waiting Time to First Product Introduction in New Firms. , 1990 .

[22]  D. Campbell,et al.  Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix. , 1959, Psychological bulletin.

[23]  G. Stalk.  Time-The Next Source of Competitive Advantage , 1988 .

[24]  Peter H. Spitz,et al.  Petrochemicals: The Rise Of An Industry , 1988 .

[25]  Robert A. Linn.  Product Development in the Chemical Industry: A Description of a Maturing Business* , 1984 .

[26]  J. Dutton,et al.  The Adoption of Radical and Incremental Innovations: An Empirical Analysis , 1986 .

[27]  S. Winter,et al.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[28]  Steven C. Wheelwright,et al.  Revolutionizing product development , 1992 .

[29]  The Development of Markets for New Materials , 1957 .

[30]  C. Prahalad,et al.  The Core Competence of the Corporation , 1990 .

[31]  C. Perrow.  A FRAMEWORK FOR THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ORGANIZATIONS , 1967 .

[32]  M. Tushman,et al.  Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments , 1986 .

[33]  R. Solow.  TECHNICAL CHANGE AND THE AGGREGATE PRODUCTION FUNCTION , 1957 .

[34]  J. Harry DuBois.  Plastics history U.S.A , 1972 .

[35]  Devendra Sahal,et al.  Patterns of Technological Innovation , 1984 .