A Structural Approach to Assessing Innovation: Construct Development of Innovation Locus, Type, and Characteristics

We take a structural approach to assessing innovation. We develop a comprehensive set of measures to assess an innovation's locus, type, and characteristics. We find that the concepts of competence destroying and competence enhancing are composed of two distinct constructs that, although correlated, separately characterize an innovation: new competence acquisition and competence enhancement/destruction. We develop scales to measure these constructs and show that new competence acquisition and competence enhancing/destroying are different from other innovation characteristics including core/peripheral and incremental/radical, as well as architectural and generational innovation types. We show that innovations can be evaluated distinctively on these various dimensions with generally small correlations between them. We estimate the impact these different innovation characteristics and types have on time to introduction and perceived commercial success. Our results indicate the importance of taking a structural approach to describing innovations and to the differential importance of innovation locus, type, and characteristics on innovation outcomes. Our results also raise intriguing questions regarding the locus of competence acquisition (internal vs. external) and both innovation outcomes.

[1]  F. Damanpour.  Organizational Innovation: A Meta-Analysis Of Effects Of Determinants and Moderators , 1991 .

[2]  R. Nelson.  Recent Evolutionary Theorizing about Economic Change , 2005, Technology, Institutions, and Economic Growth.

[3]  Walter G. Vincenti,et al.  The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop “Anomaly”: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology , 1994, Technology and Culture.

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

[5]  Clayton M. Christensen,et al.  Strategies for Survival in Fast-Changing Industries , 1998 .

[6]  Johann Peter Murmann,et al.  Dominant Designs, Technology Cycles, and Organization Outcomes. , 1998 .

[7]  F. Rothaermel.  Strategic Management Journal Research Note Incumbent's Advantage through Exploiting Complementary Assets via Interfirm Cooperation , 2022 .

[8]  Mary Tripsas.  UNRAVELING THE PROCESS OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION: COMPLEMENTARY ASSETS AND INCUMBENT SURVIVAL IN THE TYPESETTER INDUSTRY: UNRAVELING THE PROCESS OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION , 1997 .

[9]  D. Teece,et al.  The Dynamic Capabilities of Firms: an Introduction , 1994 .

[10]  S. Sanderson,et al.  Managing product families: The case of the Sony Walkman , 1995 .

[11]  Johann Peter Murmann,et al.  Dominant Designs, Technological Cycles and Organizational Outcomes , 2002 .

[12]  David J. Teece,et al.  The Dynamic Capabilities of Firms , 2003 .

[13]  Zeki Simsek,et al.  A Primer on Internet Organizational Surveys , 2001 .

[14]  Henry Chesbrough,et al.  The Organizational Impact of Technological Change: A Comparative Theory of National Institutional Factors , 1999 .

[15]  John Saunders,et al.  A comparative study of US and Japanese marketing strategies , 1987 .

[16]  Edwin R. Otto.  Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage , 1986 .

[17]  S. Winter,et al.  An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change.by Richard R. Nelson; Sidney G. Winter , 1987 .

[18]  Marco Iansiti,et al.  Technological Evolution, System Architecture and the Obsolescence of Firm Capabilities , 1995 .

[19]  Michael L. Tushman,et al.  The Coevolution of Community Networks and Technology: Lessons from the Flight Simulation Industry , 1998 .

[20]  Mary J. Benner,et al.  Exploitation, Exploration, and Process Management: The Productivity Dilemma Revisited , 2003 .

[21]  W. Mitchell.  Whether and When? Probability and Timing of Incumbents' Entry into Emerging Industrial Subfields , 1989 .

[22]  F. Damanpour.  Organizational complexity and innovation: developing and testing multiple contingency models , 1996 .

[23]  M. Tushman,et al.  Technological Discontinuities and Dominant Designs: A Cyclical Model of Technological Change , 1990 .

[24]  G. Dosi.  Technological Paradigms and Technological Trajectories: A Suggested Interpretation of the Determinants and Directions of Technical Change , 1982 .

[25]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Design Rules: The Power of Modularity , 2000 .

[26]  Giovanni Gavetti,et al.  Capabilities, cognition, and inertia: evidence from digital imaging , 2000 .

[27]  Gilbert A. Churchill.  A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs , 1979 .

[28]  Lee Fleming,et al.  Special Issue on Design and Development: Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search , 2001, Manag. Sci..

[29]  W. Abernathy.  Innovation : Mapping the winds of creative destruction * , 2003 .

[30]  Ellinor Ehrnberg,et al.  On the definition and measurement of technological discontinuities , 1995 .

[31]  R. Westrum.  The Social Construction of Technological Systems , 1989 .

[32]  L. TushmanMichael,et al.  A Structural Approach to Assessing Innovation , 2002 .

[33]  J. Wagner,et al.  Percept-Percept Inflation in Microorganizational Research: An Investigation of Prevalence and Effect , 1994 .

[34]  Lynda Aiman-Smith,et al.  Assessing a multidimensional measure of radical technological innovation , 1995 .

[35]  Gregory G. Dess,et al.  Measuring organizational performance in the absence of objective measures: The case of the privately-held firm and conglomerate business unit , 1984 .

[36]  Melissa A. Schilling.  Toward a General Modular Systems Theory and Its Application to Interfirm Product Modularity , 2000 .

[37]  S. Wheelwright,et al.  The interaction of design hierarchies and market concepts in technological evolution * , 2003 .

[38]  R. Henderson.  Of life cycles real and imaginary : the unexpectedly long old age of optical lithography , 1995 .

[39]  J. March.  Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning , 1991, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[40]  Edward W. Constant,et al.  The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution , 1982 .

[41]  Christopher Alexander.  Notes on the Synthesis of Form , 1964 .

[42]  John Saunders,et al.  A comparative study of British, U.S. and Japanese marketing strategies in the British market , 1988 .

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

[44]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[45]  Allan Afuah.  How much do your co-opetitors' capabilities matter in the face of technological change? , 2000 .

[46]  Karl T. Ulrich,et al.  Product Design and Development , 1995 .

[47]  Atul Nerkar,et al.  On the Complexity of Technological Evolution: Exploring Coevolution within and across Hierarchical Levels in Optical Disc Technology , 1999 .

[48]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of , 1990 .

[49]  G. Dosi.  Technological Paradigms and Technological Trajectories , 1993 .

[50]  Ron Sanchez,et al.  Modularity, flexibility, and knowledge management in product and organization design , 1996 .

[51]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Design Rules: The Power of Modularity Volume 1 , 1999 .

[52]  Joel A. C. Baum,et al.  Evolutionary dynamics of organizations , 1996 .

[53]  A. Cooper,et al.  How established firms respond to threatening technologies , 1992 .

[54]  J. Stanton.  AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF DATA COLLECTION USING THE INTERNET , 1998 .

[55]  Clayton M. Christensen,et al.  Explaining the attacker's advantage: Technological paradigms, organizational dynamics, and the value network , 1995 .

[56]  D. Sull.  The Dynamics of Standing Still: Firestone Tire & Rubber and the Radial Revolution , 1999, Business History Review.

[57]  Amy K. Glasmeier,et al.  Technological discontinuities and flexible production networks: The case of Switzerland and the world watch industry * , 1991 .

[58]  S. E. Johnson,et al.  A revolution in time , 1990 .

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

[60]  E. von Hippel,et al.  Sources of Innovation , 2016 .

[61]  H. Greve,et al.  From Silicon Valley to Singapore: Location and Competitive Advantage in the Hard Disk Drive Industry , 2001 .

[62]  M. Tushman,et al.  Organizational Environments and Industry Exit: the Effects of Uncertainty, Munificence and Complexity , 2001 .

[63]  R. Langlois,et al.  Networks and innovation in a modular system: Lessons from the microcomputer and stereo component industries , 1992 .

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

[65]  Paul Israel,et al.  The Sources of Innovation , 1990 .

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

[67]  Richard P. Bagozzi,et al.  Assessing Construct Validity in Organizational Research , 1991 .

[68]  Toby E. Stuart,et al.  A Role-Based Ecology of Technological Change , 1995, American Journal of Sociology.

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