The Market Evolution and Sales Takeoff of Product Innovations
Management Science
New Product Innovation with Multiple Features and Technology Constraints
Management Science
Diffusion dynamics in small-world networks with heterogeneous consumers
Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory
Research on Innovation: A Review and Agenda for Marketing Science
Marketing Science
Product Line Design with Component Commonality and Cost-Reduction Effort
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Information Technology Investment Strategies Under Declining Technology Cost
Journal of Management Information Systems
Do Innovations Really Pay Off? Total Stock Market Returns to Innovation
Marketing Science
Case studies of technology roadmapping in mining
Journal of Engineering and Technology Management
Influences on standards adoption in de facto standardization
Information Technology and Management - Special issue on New Theories and Methods for Technology Adoption Research
Asymmetric Upgrading of Mobile Services: A Demand-Side Explanation
International Journal of E-Business Research
Classifying and comparing community innovation in Idea Management Systems
Decision Support Systems
Examining the growth of digital wireless phone technology: A take-off theory analysis
Decision Support Systems
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The evolution of technology has been a central issue in the strategy and organizations literature. However, the focus of much of this work has been on what is essentially the "supply side" of technical change--the evolution of firm capabilities. We present a demand-based view of technology evolution that is focused on the interaction between technology development and the demand environment in which the technology is ultimately evaluated. We develop a formal computer simulation model that explicitly considers the influence of heterogeneity in market demand--the presence of consumers with different needs and requirements--on firms' innovation choices. The model is used to examine the dynamics of product and process innovation (Utterback and Abernathy 1975). The analysis reveals that demand heterogeneity offers an alternative to supply-side explanations of the technology life cycle. Further, by considering the implications of decreasing marginal utility from performance improvements, the model highlights the role of "technologically satisfied" consumers in shaping innovation incentives, and suggests a rationale for a new stage in the technology life cycle characterized by increasing performance at a stable price. The stage has not yet been treated formally in the literature, but is widely observed, most prominently in digital and information-based technologies.