Innovation at the end of the life cycle: discontinuous innovation strategies by incumbents
研究了在位企业在成熟创新系统中开发非连续性创新的动机和策略，基于荷兰温室园艺业的10个案例，发现企业因不满现状而创新，并试图绕过或改变现有系统。
This paper focuses on the strategies of incumbents that seek to develop discontinuous innovations within the boundaries of a mature innovation system. Mature innovation systems do not provide support for these discontinuous innovations. This article focuses on exploring why incumbents in these setting engage in discontinuous innovation and what strategies they deploy to become successful. We analyse 10 cases of incumbents developing discontinuous innovations in the mature Dutch greenhouse horticulture sector. The results of our analysis show that the incumbents are primarily triggered by dissatisfaction with the current way of doing business and that the existing institutions are the main barrier to discontinuous innovation. In response, the incumbents try to circumvent the existing innovation system in their innovation process, but when successful also engage in changing the existing innovation system. This paper contributes to the understanding of the role of incumbents as source of discontinuous innovation in mature innovation systems.