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Customer preference discontinuities: a trigger for radical technological change

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Author Info
Mary Tripsas (Harvard Business School, MA, USA)
Abstract

What factors cause a mature industry to re-enter a period of technological turbulence? This paper addresses this question by developing a model of technological evolution that incorporates both technological trajectories and a new concept: preference trajectories, which are cycles of incremental and discontinuous change in preferences. Preference discontinuities turn out to play an important role in triggering technological transitions in an industry. I illustrate the model with an historical study of the typesetter industry, which underwent three major technological transitions, each of which was driven by preference discontinuities. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/mde.1389
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Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Managerial and Decision Economics.

Volume (Year): 29 (2008)
Issue (Month): 2-3 ()
Pages: 79-97
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:29:y:2008:i:2-3:p:79-97

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Web page: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/7976

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    Other versions:
  3. Rebecca Henderson, 1993. "Underinvestment and Incompetence as Responses to Radical Innovation: Evidence from the Photolithographic Alignment Equipment Industry," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(2), pages 248-270, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Cooper, Arnold C. & Schendel, Dan, 1976. "Strategic responses to technological threats," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 61-69, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Yates, JoAnne, 1951-, 1993. "Co-evolution of information processing technology and use : interaction between the life insurance and tabulating industries," Working papers 3575-93., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management. [Downloadable!]
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  13. Levinthal, Daniel A, 1998. "The Slow Pace of Rapid Technological Change: Gradualism and Punctuation in Technological Change," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 217-47, June.
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