IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Innovation and Dominant Design in Mobile Telephony

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Heli Koski
  • Tobias Kretschmer

Abstract

We document the evolution of product innovation and features in the mobile telephone handset market. We distinguish between two types of product innovation: vertical and horizontal innovation. Using data on mobile telephone handsets from 1990 to 2003, we study the emergence of a dominant design in vertical and horizontal innovations and find that, while vertical product characteristics converged to some extent, no dominant design emerged. For horizontal product characteristics, some horizontal innovations remained differentiated, whereas others were adopted in all new handset models, thus forming a dominant design in horizontal product features. We explain this pattern using the concept of dominant design and results from the theoretical literature on the incentives for horizontal and vertical differentiation.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13662710701369262
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by Taylor & Francis Journals in its journal Industry and Innovation.

Volume (Year): 14 (2007)
Issue (Month): 3 ()
Pages: 305-324

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:taf:indinn:v:14:y:2007:i:3:p:305-324
DOI: 10.1080/13662710701369262
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIAI20

Order Information: Web: http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CIAI20

Keywords: Product innovation; mobile phone handsets; dominant design; min-max principle;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
  • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications
  • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Reinganum, Jennifer F, 1983. "Uncertain Innovation and the Persistence of Monopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 741-748, September.
  2. Lehrer, Mark, 2004. "National lead markets and the design competition for 3G network applications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(12), pages 1397-1401, December.
  3. Heli Koski & Tobias Kretschmer, 2004. "Entry, Standards and Competition: Firm Strategies and the Diffusion of Mobile Telephony," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 26(1), pages 89-113, November.
  4. Tobias Kretschmer & Katrin Muehlfeld, 2004. "Co-opetition in Standard-Setting: The Case of the Compact Disc," Working Papers 04-14, NET Institute, revised Oct 2004.
  5. Liikanen, Jukka & Stoneman, Paul & Toivanen, Otto, 2004. "Intergenerational effects in the diffusion of new technology: the case of mobile phones," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1137-1154, November.
  6. Heli Koski & Tobias Kretschmer, 2004. "Survey on Competing in Network Industries: Firm Strategies, Market Outcomes, and Policy Implications," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 5-31, 03.
  7. Rosenkranz, Stephanie, 2003. "Simultaneous choice of process and product innovation when consumers have a preference for product variety," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 183-201, February.
  8. 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.
  9. Geroski, Paul, 2003. "The Evolution of New Markets," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199248896, April.
  10. Clayton M. Christensen & Fernando F. Suárez & James M. Utterback, 1998. "Strategies for Survival in Fast-Changing Industries," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(12-Part-2), pages 207-220, December.
  11. Filson, Darren, 2002. "Product and process innovations in the life cycle of an industry," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 97-112, September.
  12. Robert Axelrod & Will Mitchell & Robert E. Thomas & D. Scott Bennett & Erhard Bruderer, 1995. "Coalition Formation in Standard-Setting Alliances," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(9), pages 1493-1508, September.
  13. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
  14. Neven, D. & Thisse, J-F., 1989. "On Quality And Variety Competition," CORE Discussion Papers 1989020, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
  15. Heli Koski & Tobias Kretschmer, 2004. "Competing in Network Industries--A Rejoinder," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 67-69, 03.
  16. Czarnitzki, Dirk & Kraft, Kornelius, 2004. "An empirical test of the asymmetric models on innovative activity: who invests more into R&D, the incumbent or the challenger?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 153-173, June.
  17. Gandal, Neil & Salant, David & Waverman, Leonard, 0. "Standards in wireless telephone networks," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(5-6), pages 325-332, June.
  18. Degryse, Hans, 1996. "On the Interaction between Vertical and Horizontal Product Differentiation: An Application to Banking," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 169-186, June.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Koski, Heli & Kretschmer, Tobias, 2010. "New product development and firm value in mobile handset production," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 42-50, March.
  2. Riikonen, Antti & Smura, Timo & Kivi, Antero & Töyli, Juuso, 2013. "Diffusion of mobile handset features: Analysis of turning points and stages," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 563-572.
  3. Buss, Philipp & Peukert, Christian, 2015. "R&D outsourcing and intellectual property infringement," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 977-989.
  4. Riikonen, Antti & Smura, Timo & Töyli, Juuso, 2016. "The effects of price, popularity, and technological sophistication on mobile handset replacement and unit lifetime," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 313-323.
  5. Vesselkova, Alexandr & Riikonena, Antti & Hämmäinena & Heikki, 2015. "Evolution of mobile handset feature dependences," 26th European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2015 127192, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
  6. Koski, Heli & Kretchmer, Tobias, 2009. "The Role of Product Innovation on the Diffusion of Mobile Telephone," Discussion Papers 1200, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
  7. Ram Mudambi, 2013. "Location, control and firm innovation: the case of the mobile handset industry," Chapters, in: Handbook of Industry Studies and Economic Geography, chapter 9, pages 230-252 Edward Elgar Publishing.
  8. Claussen, Jörg & Essling, Christian & Kretschmer, Tobias, 2015. "When less can be more – Setting technology levels in complementary goods markets," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 328-339.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:indinn:v:14:y:2007:i:3:p:305-324. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Michael McNulty)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.