The Making of Convergence: Knowledge Reuse, Boundary Spanning, and the Formation of the ICT Industry

Abstract

While mastering technology and industry convergence are essential for firms across a growing number of industries, convergence is often rapid and abrupt, challenging firms to develop appropriate strategic responses. Focusing on the historical convergence between information technology and communication technology, we examine the microlevel behaviors of scientists initiating and driving convergence. Analyzing a bibliometric dataset of 257 641 scientific articles, we demonstrate how industry convergence manifests in a microlevel scientific convergence, preceding industry convergence by several decades. Our article contributes to the literature on convergence by developing new bibliometric measures for scientific convergence, and by contrasting microlevel behaviors that underpin convergence. Based on our findings, we offer a set of methods and strategies to assist managers in technology-based businesses with anticipating and responding to convergence in a timely manner.

Similarities and differences between absorptive capacity and appropriability: a bibliometric perspective

“…Scientific papers such as those by Dedrick and Kraemer (2015) are needed to understand why the production of innovations is limited in some countries. However, to understand the link between these two fields from other perspectives, a convergence and divergence analysis could provide another perspective on the benefits of these topics in different management areas (Hacklin et al. , 2021).…”

Editorial Deciphering Convergence: Novel Insights and Future Ideas on Science, Technology, and Industry Convergence

“…By employing a microfoundations perspective Hacklin et al [70] contribute to both: the body of literature on "anticipation of convergence" (strand 2) as they render novel measures enabling the assessment of scientific convergence -second, their study also highlights the team composition which relates to the comparably small body of research on "strategic reactions to convergence" (strand 3). By drawing on a bibliometric dataset Hacklin et al explore the microfoundations of early-stage convergence in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry.…”

Managing knowledge reuse: the duality of innovator personality

“…In this paper, we focus on knowledge reuse which refers to the knowledge management measure of innovators through adapting and recombining nontraditional knowledge [2] that is associated with multiple knowledge domains. Knowledge reuse is inarguably a more frequent concern of innovators in the current innovation environment (Markus et al , 2002; Schillebeeckx et al , 2021; Hacklin et al , 2021; Chen, 2021) and has been used in a wide range of NPD. For instance, innovators of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in NASA took advantage of knowledge reuse to develop new products of laser radar, electrometer and atomic force microscope which are all used in the detector of Mars (Majchrzak et al , 2004).…”

“…We fill this important gap by exposing the role of innovator personality in two distinct aspects of managing knowledge reuse: initiation (generating discrete awareness to consider reusing nontraditional knowledge which does not belong to innovators’ professional areas in response to the gap) (Majchrzak et al , 2004; Markus et al , 2002) and implementation (carrying out knowledge reuse) (Zhao et al , 2020; Waisberg and Nelson, 2018; Hacklin et al , 2021). We draw on two distinct streams to develop our research model.…”

“…Although the useful and feasible of knowledge reuse for innovation and NPD has been studied in many disparate settings and provided promising insights (Zhao et al, 2020;Majchrzak et al, 2004;Cheung et al, 2008;Waisberg and Nelson, 2018;Markus et al, 2002;Hacklin et al, 2021;Schillebeeckx et al, 2021;Chen, 2021), scholars still possess a deficient understanding of knowledge reuse. Prior studies have been almost exclusively concerned with the manifestations of innovators in knowledge reuse activities or the contributions of knowledge reuse for problem-solving.…”