Incumbent firm invention in emerging fields: evidence from the semiconductor industry
研究了在位企业在技术变革早期主动发明的原因和策略，发现它们通过探索新领域、利用公共科学知识和平衡合作伙伴组合来成功发明，挑战了其只关注渐进创新的传统观点。
Abstract Incumbent firms are often thought to focus on incremental innovations and only respond to a major technological change once its impact on established markets and/or dominant designs becomes clear. We argue, however, that incumbent firms have many reasons to proactively invent early in cycles of technological change. Our interest is in the strategies that allow incumbents to be successful in this endeavor during the infancy of an emerging field—the period before it is clear how the field will affect dominant designs. Our evidence counters the stereotypical view that incumbent firms play a passive role in major technological changes by adhering to incremental inventions in the existing dominant designs. Rather, we find significant inventions by incumbents outside the existing dominant designs and relate their success to their willingness to search novel areas, explore scientific knowledge in the public domain, and form alliances with a balanced portfolio of partners. We find support for our hypotheses using data from the global semiconductor industry between 1989 and 2002. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.