Does technological convergence imply convergence in markets? Evidence from the electronics industry

Decomposing technological change at the twilight of the twentieth century: Evidence and lessons from the world’s largest innovating firms

“…It follows that large, technologically competitive manufacturing firms typically develop an array of distributed competences, rather than concentrating exclusively on core competences as a source of advantage in international markets (Granstrand et al, 1997). Companies have maintained higher levels of technological diversity than product diversity in the past century (Gambardella and Torrisi, 1998;Andersen and Walsh, 2000;Piscitello, 2004), and this trend seems to have deepened under the impact of the technologies of the information age (Fai, 2003;Mendonça, 2006).…”

Missing the Starting Gun. Entry Timing Decisions into New Market Niches

“…From one side, and also our analysis is consistent with that, for incumbents the timing of entry in a technological and in a product race are different. Incumbents enter early into new technological fields, maybe because they use competences embedded in existing products (Gambardella and Torrisi, 1998), probably without any considerations about the possibility to exploit these capabilities in future markets. But building a large, diversified technological base could be a necessary condition to maintain a chance to enter promptly into new markets when an inertial entry decision will be taken.…”

Convergence in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Using Patent Analysis

“…Patent analysis can be regarded as one of the most effective methods to keep in touch with technology trends (Karvonen and Kassi, 2010). Scholars used patent analysis to discuss convergence phenomenon (Duysters and Hagedoorn, 1998;Gambardella and Torrisi, 1998;Bröring, 2005;Curran and Leker, 2011;Kavon and Kassi, 2010). This is an exploratory research to examine technology convergence of the supply side as a firm level in the ICT sector using patent analysis.…”

“…The first use of the term convergence can be traced back to Rosenberg (1963) who introduced the label 'technological convergence' as a way to describe the evolution towards a specialized machine tool industry in the US in the late 1800s. Rosenberg's notion of technological convergence appears to have re-emerged in recent decades as way of describing the apparent merger of telecom, data communication, IT, media and entertainment into a giant ICT and multimedia industry (Gambardella and Torrisi, 1998). During the 90s, convergence was mainly discussed in the context of the merger of the IT, telecommunications, media and entertainment industries into a giant 'infocom' sector (Lind, 2004).…”

“…Pennings and Puranam (2001) argued that based on a validity assumption for classification schemes like the IPC (International Patent Classification), convergence can be found in patent data through growing overlapping among IPCs and through an increase in patent citations between different classes. Patent analysis has been employed in the context of technology-driven convergence of electronics, computers, and telecommunication (Duysters and Hagedoorn, 1998;Gambardella and Torrisi, 1998;Bröring, 2005) as patents are often regarded as outcome indicators for organizations' R&D activities (Ernst, 1995;Fai and Tunzelmann, 2001). Curran and Leker (2009; discussed convergence indicators using patent data.…”