Emerging industries and the burnout of pioneers

Preannouncing pioneering versus follower products: what should the message be?

“…For example, with regard to the first commercialized personal digital assistants (PDAs), Bayus et al (1997, p. 58) note: "The software was not completely debugged, and the handwriting recognition feature did not work as promised." Thus, although providing a potential benefit, a perceived lack of maturity and the resulting performance uncertainty often hinder the acceptance of products in the early stages of a new product category (Olleros 1986). Support for this argumentation comes from judgmental psychology.…”

“…Previous research has argued that, due to their novelty, pioneering products are afflicted with high performance uncertainty (Agarwal and Bayus 2004;Veryzer 1998). This, in turn, has been shown to result in high trial resistance by potential users, thereby negatively affecting new product success (Olleros 1986;Parker and Gatignon 1996). Confirming this notion, our study demonstrates that a preannouncement message focus aimed at reducing perceived product risk positively moderates the relationship between preannouncement intensity and new product success for pioneers: The stronger the message focuses on risk reduction, the stronger is the effect of preannouncement intensity on new product success.…”

“…Concerning the moderating variables, risk reduction focus refers to the degree to which the prelaunch communication activities focus on reducing customers' perceived risk and on accentuating the new product's reliability (Olleros 1986;Ostlund 1974;Ram and Sheth 1989). Relative advantage focus addresses the extent to which the prelaunch communication activities focus on informing customers about the product advantage compared to existing alternatives (Kohli 1999;Lilly and Krishnan 1996).…”

“…discussions with 21 managers from different industries (machinery, healthcare, information technology, consumer electronics, and consumer packaged goods). Based on these interviews, we identified the reduction of market penetration cycle times, the acceleration of amortization of investments in the new product, the creation of a strong market position, and the management of existing and potential customer relationships as highly relevant success dimensions (e.g., Lilly and Walters 1997;Olleros 1986;Robertson 1993). As our aim is to investigate the effectiveness of different preannouncement messages according to order of entry, we furthermore distinguish between new products that pioneer a new market, enter as an early follower into a still evolving market, or constitute a late follower into an established market situation (Robinson and Fornell 1985).…”

THE CONCEPT OFINTERESSEMENT: THE STORY OF A POWER-SPLIT TECHNOLOGY FOR HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLES

“…Previous research on technological discontinuities (e.g. Olleros, 1986;Tushman et al, 1997;Tripsas and Gavetti, 2000) and the management of discontinuous innovation (e.g. March, 1991;Leonard-Barton, 1992;Utterback, 1994;Tushman and O'Reilly, 1996;Christensen, 1997) has provided valuable insights on how to organise discontinuous innovation, but there are a few examples of how firms actually deal with such innovations.…”