Technological competition: a path towards commoditization or differentiation?

Technological rivalry is recognized as a key dimension of competition and innovation strategies in the digital era. It is particularly important in strategies focused on disruptive and repeated innovations, where each step contributes to shaping the design of the offering, the structuring of the market and the value chain. These technological trajectories are built on the basis of tensions between two contradictory objectives: specialization aimed at creating proprietary systems and standardization aimed at supplying the overall market. In the former case, successive innovations support competition between exclusive and proprietary ecosystems. In the latter case, commoditized devices create opportunities for alternative actors to engage in innovation and value creation. The e-book reader market serves as a key example of the issues at stake in terms of technological rivalry among technology suppliers, digital platforms, and publishers.

[1]  Michael A. Cusumano,et al.  Platform Leadership How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation , 2002 .

[2]  D. Teece.  Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation , 2010 .

[3]  P. David.  Clio and the Economics of QWERTY , 1985 .

[4]  J. Rochet,et al.  Platform competition in two sided markets , 2003 .

[5]  Pierre Benghozi,et al.  "Strategies and business models of online platforms in CCIs: convergence or differentiation in the e-book sector?" , 2014 .

[6]  C. Markides.  Strategic Innovation in Established Companies , 1998 .

[7]  C. Baden‐Fuller,et al.  Business Models and Technological Innovation , 2013 .

[8]  Cécile Chamaret,et al.  Comment échapper à la commoditisation , 2011 .

[9]  Georg Schreyögg,et al.  How dynamic can organizational capabilities be? Towards a dual-process model of capability dynamization , 2007 .

[10]  B. Schlegelmilch,et al.  Strategic innovation: the construct, its drivers and its strategic outcomes , 2003 .

[11]  D. Teece,et al.  DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT , 1997 .

[12]  A. Lewin,et al.  Prolegomena on Coevolution: a Framework for Research on Strategy and New Organizational Forms , 1999 .

[13]  Brian Fitzgerald,et al.  The Transformation of Open Source Software , 2006, MIS Q..

[14]  P. Ritala,et al.  Incremental and Radical Innovation in Coopetition—The Role of Absorptive Capacity and Appropriability , 2013 .

[15]  P. Ritala,et al.  What's in it for me? Creating and appropriating value in innovation-related coopetition , 2009 .

[16]  Pierre Benghozi,et al.  The economics and business models of prescription in the Internet , 2007 .

[17]  Nicoletta Corrocher,et al.  Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry , 2015 .

[18]  P. Ritala,et al.  Coopetition-based business models: The case of Amazon.com , 2014 .

[19]  Pierre-Jean Benghozi,et al.  Managing Innovation: From ad hoc to Routine in French Telecom , 1990 .

[20]  Nicholas G. Carr,et al.  Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage , 2004 .

[21]  F. Roy,et al.  Stratégie de coopétition et performance de marché : une étude empirique , 2014 .

[22]  J. Pfeffer,et al.  Environments of Organizations , 1976 .

[23]  P.-J. Benghozi,et al.  How and where the R&D takes place in creative industries? Digital investment strategies of the book publishing sector* , 2016, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[24]  H. Ronte.  The impact of technology on publishing , 2001 .

[25]  Stefan H. Thomke,et al.  Managing Experimentation in the Design of New Products , 1998 .

[26]  J. P. Simon,et al.  Statistical, ecosystems and competitiveness analysis of the media and content industries : The Newspaper Publishing Industry , 2012 .

[27]  Antoine Blanc,et al.  Against the digital revolution? Institutional maintenance and artefacts within the French recorded music industry , 2014 .

[28]  M. Hammer,et al.  Deep change - how operational innovation can transform your company , 2004, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[29]  Raffi Duymedjian,et al.  Digital bricolage: Resources and coordination in the production of digital visual effects , 2014 .

[30]  Robert N. Stern,et al.  The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. , 1979 .

[31]  Federico Casalegno,et al.  The Three Dimensions of Book Evolution in Ubiquitous Computing Age: Digitalization, Augmentation, and Hypermediation , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Sensor Networks, Ubiquitous, and Trustworthy Computing.

[32]  S. Hüsig,et al.  Ex-ante evaluation of disruptive susceptibility in established value networks—When are markets ready for disruptive innovations? , 2013 .

[33]  J. Dahl.  Conceptualizing coopetition as a process: An outline of change in cooperative and competitive interactions , 2014 .

[34]  N. Howard.  The Book: The Life Story of a Technology , 2005 .

[35]  R. Bouncken,et al.  COOPETITION: PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS AND MANAGEMENT ANTECEDENTS , 2012 .

[36]  Michael E. Raynor,et al.  The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth , 2003 .

[37]  T. Pénard,et al.  Que peut-on dire des stratégies tarifaires sur Internet ? Une étude économétrique sur la vente en ligne de CD en France , 2003 .

[38]  Elen Riot.  L'édition française à l'heure de la rupture du livre numérique , 2013 .

[39]  Alberto Di Minin,et al.  Disruptive Innovation … in Reverse: Adding a Geographical Dimension to Disruptive Innovation Theory , 2014 .

[40]  J. B. Quinn,et al.  Strategic Change: "Logical Incrementalism.". , 1978 .

[41]  Dan Yu,et al.  A Reflective Review of Disruptive Innovation Theory , 2010 .

[42]  Liisa-Maija Sainio,et al.  Coopetition for radical innovation: technology, market and business-model perspectives , 2014, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

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

[44]  Devi R. Gnyawali,et al.  Co-opetition between giants: Collaboration with competitors for technological innovation , 2011 .

[45]  M. Bengtsson,et al.  The coopetition paradox and tension in coopetition at multiple levels , 2014 .

[46]  Nicolaj Siggelkow.  Persuasion with case studies , 2007 .

[47]  C. Loebbecke,et al.  Innovating for the Mobile End-User Market: Amazon's Kindle 2 Strategy as Emerging Business Model , 2010, 2010 Ninth International Conference on Mobile Business and 2010 Ninth Global Mobility Roundtable (ICMB-GMR).

[48]  Claudio Vitari,et al.  A longitudinal analysis of trajectory changes in the software industry: the case of the content management application segment , 2009, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[49]  Frédéric Le Roy,et al.  Coopetition. Winning strategies for the 21st century , 2010 .

[50]  K. Eisenhardt,et al.  Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos , 1998 .

[51]  W. Orlikowski,et al.  Windows of Opportunity: Temporal Patterns of Technological Adaptation in Organizations , 2011 .

[52]  C. Shapiro,et al.  Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities , 1986, Journal of Political Economy.

[53]  M. Hannan.  Ecologies of Organizations: Diversity and Identity , 2005 .

[54]  R. Dumoulin,et al.  Stratégie de rupture et PME : la réplication impossible , 2005 .

[55]  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt,et al.  Theory Building From Cases: Opportunities And Challenges , 2007 .

[56]  Y. Chandra,et al.  Managing Disruptive Innovation: Entrepreneurial strategies and tournaments for corporate longevity , 2011 .

[57]  Clayton M. Christensen.  The Innovator's Dilemma , 1997 .

[58]  M. Bengtsson,et al.  Coopetition—Quo vadis? Past accomplishments and future challenges , 2014 .

[59]  S. Tran.  Quelle contribution des technologies collaboratives à la configuration des organisations , 2014 .

[60]  G. Hamel.  The Challenge Today: Changing the Rules of the Game , 1998 .

[61]  James N. Baron,et al.  Organizational identities and the hazard of change , 2006 .

[62]  Jacquelyn S. Thomas,et al.  Toward an Understanding of Industry Commoditization: Its Nature and Role in Evolving Marketing Competition , 2010 .

[63]  P. Ritala.  Coopetition Strategy – When is it Successful? Empirical Evidence on Innovation and Market Performance , 2001 .

[64]  A. McGahan.  How industries change. , 2004, Harvard business review.