The Emergence of Dominant Designs

Abstract

In many product categories, technological evolution results in the emergence of a single product design that achieves market dominance. In this article, the authors examine two questions: Will a dominant design emerge in a new product category? and If it does, how long will it be before a dominant design emerges? Thus, the authors simultaneously model the probability of emergence of a dominant design and the time of that emergence, conditional on its emergence. The model incorporates the effects of several product-market characteristics on the probability and time of dominant design emergence, including appropriability of the rents associated with the product, network effects, size of the product's value net, the standards-setting process, radicalness of innovation, and research-and-development intensity. The authors use data for 63 office products and consumer durables to estimate a split-population hazard model for the probability and time of emergence of the dominant design. They find that a dominant design is more likely to emerge with weak appropriability, weak network effects, low product radicalness, and high research-and-development intensity. Dominant designs that emerge are likely to emerge sooner in product categories in which there is weak appropriability, there are a large number of firms in the value net, the standards are set by a de facto process, and there is low product radicalness The proposed model can be used to predict both the probability and the time of the emergence of a dominant design in a new product category.

Perspective: A Review of Marketing Research on Product Design with Directions for Future Research

“…Product success. The strategic significance of dominant designs, the balance of risks, investments, and success rates, all feed into the desire to increase profits, sales, and develop strong brands (Srinivasan, Lilien, and Rangaswamy, 2006). There are a number of firm incentives to offer both customized and standard products in a competitive environment (Syam and Kumar, 2006).…”

Battle on the Wrong Field? Entrant Type, Dominant Designs, and Technology Exit

“…The market mechanism of platform technologies is often characterized by the presence of network effects (Gawer, 2014). Research in both management and network economics has documented that network effects occur when the overall utility of a technology product is a function of the size of the installed base; the larger the number of users and the greater the availability of complementary technologies, the more desirable a focal technology becomes among customers compared with rivaling technologies, leading to increasing returns to adoption (Soh, 2010;Srinivasan, Lilien, & Rangaswamy, 2006). When network effects are present, technologies that fail to kick off such increasing returns may be cornered in the market and may even be forced to exit (Schilling, 2002).…”

Product Design: a Review and Research Agenda for Management Studies

“…Research policy (3) Clark (1985), Christensen and Rosenbloom (1995), Utterback and Suarez (1993) Administrative Science Quarterly (2) Henderson and Clark (1990), Tushman and Anderson (1986) Harvard Business Review (1) Clark and Fujimoto (1990) Technology Review(1) Abernathy and Utterback (1978) Management Science(1) Christensen et al (1998), Strategic Management Journal (1) Suarez and Utterback (1995) Journal of Marketing (1) Srinivasan et al (2006) Books (3) Alexander (1964), Alexander (1979), Simon (1969) Design-driven and stylistic innovation (13) Journal of Product Innovation Management (3) Dell'Era and Verganti (2007), Karjalainen andSnelders (2009), Verganti (2008) Harvard Business Review (1) Verganti (2006) Int. Journal of Innovation (1) Dell 'Era et al (2008) Long Range Planning (1) Cillo and Verona (2008) R&D Management (1) Dell'Era and Verganti (2009) Organization Science (1) Rindova and Petkova (2007) Research policy (1) Cappetta et al (2006) Research-Technology Management…”

“…The emergence of a dominant design is usually followed by a new era of incremental product and/or process innovations. In this view, product design represents a milestone of change in patterns of industrial innovation (Tushman and Anderson 1986) and inter-firm competition (Christensen and Rosenbloom 1995;Christensen et al 1998;Srinivasan et al 2006;Product Design 471 Suarez and Utterback 1995;Utterback and Suarez 1993). Related work tried to explain the relative success of a design over other competing solutions in terms of the 'goodness of fit' between basic functional parameters and socio-economic and technological context (Clark 1985).…”